Master Stem Cell for the Heart

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston studying mice said they have found what may be a master cardiac stem cell - able to change into the three major cell types in a mammal's heart - in a finding that could help guide heart repair in people. Writing in the Journal Cell they identified these cells in mice, then demonstrated that they can transform into the contracting cardiac heart muscle cells and the smooth muscle and endothelial cells that make up blood vessels. Lead researcher Dr. Kenneth Chien indicated his team was surprised to learn that a single cell can lead to all of these tissues and structures in the heart. Also writing in Cell, a team of researchers led by Dr. Stuart Orkin of Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Children's Hospital, Boston said they found a type of stem cell that is the precursor to at least two of the three main cell types that form the heart. Findings, the researchers said, could move scientists nearer to being able to use stem cell therapies to regenerate tissues to repair congenital heart defects in children and damage caused by heart attacks in adults. Chien noted that both studies involved the use of mouse embryonic stem cells, and said emphasis was needed on exploring the potential of human embryonic stem cells for repairing damaged hearts. Chien said the heart may be more similar to blood that scientists imagined, nothing single so-called hematopoietic stem cells can give rise to all of the cell types found in blood.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10642-heart-stem-cells-discovered-by-three-teams.html