Cardiac regeneration: still a 21st century challenge in search for cardiac progenitors from stem cells and embryos.

ABSTRACT

Regeneration of the heart after a stroke would be the best biologic response to restore its function. However, although this phenomenon occurs in primitive organisms, the regenerative potential is lost in mammals. Thus, the search for an appropriate cardiac progenitor with the potential to differentiate into a functional cardiomyocyte in vitro and in vivo has been the subject of intensive investigation. We summarize the cardiogenic transcriptional pathway that constitutes the molecular scaffold to drive pluripotent stem cells toward a cardiac progenitor fate. Then we overview the literature on derivation of cardiac progenitors from both embryos and stem cells.