<strong>요약 :</strong>

Human amniotic epithelial cells (h-AECs), which have various merits as a cell source for cell therapy, are known to differentiate into cardiomyocytes in vitro. However, the ability of h-AECs to differentiate into cardiomyocytes

in vivo and their cell transplantation effects on myocardial infarction are still unknown. In this study, we assessed whether h-AECs could differentiate into cardiomyocytes in vivo and whether h-AECs transplantation

can decrease infarct size and improve cardiac function, in comparison to transplantation of cord bloodderived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) or adipose tissue-derived MSCs. For our study, we injected h-AECs,

cord blood-derived MSCs, adipose tissue-derived MSCs, and saline into areas of myocardial infarction in athymic nude rats. After 4 weeks, 3% of the surviving h-AECs expressed myosin heavy chain, a marker specific to

the myocardium. Compared with the saline group, all cell-implanted groups showed a higher ejection fraction, lower infarct area by positron emission tomography and histology, and more abundant myocardial gene and

protein expression in the infarct area. We showed that h-AECs can differentiate into cardiomyocyte-like cells, decrease infarct size, and improve cardiac function in vivo. The beneficial effects of h-AECs were comparable

to those of cord blood and adipose tissue-derived MSCs. These results support the need for further studies of h-AECs as a cell source for myocardial regeneration due to their plentiful availability, low immunity, and lack of ethical issues related to their use

<strong>발행연도 : </strong>2012

<strong>저자 :</strong> Fang CH, Jin J, Joe JH, Song YS, So BI, Lim SM, Cheon GJ, Woo SK, Ra JC, Lee YY, Kim KS

<strong>출처 :</strong> Cell Transplant

<strong>소스 : </strong>상피 MSC