Heart regeneration using reprogramming technology

Abstract

Loss of terminally differentiated cardiomyocytes due to heart disease is irreversible and current therapeutic regimes are limited. Cell therapy using stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes is an attractive option to repair injured hearts. The discovery of direct reprogramming of broblasts into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and successful differentiation of iPSCs into cardiomyocytes provided a revolutionary paradigm in heart regenerative research. During the past decades, signicant advances in stem cell culture, differentiation and purication protocols, as well as in cell transplantation methodologies, have been achieved. On the other hand, recent studies demonstrated that a somatic cell could be converted into an alternative differentiated cell type without rst becoming a stem cell by overexpression of lineage-specic factors. We found that functional cardiomyocytes can be directly induced from broblasts by a combination of three cardiac transcription factors, Gata4, Mef2c and Tbx5, in vitro and in vivo. I will review the perspectives of heart regeneration using reprogramming technology. © 2013 The Japan Academy.