Monday, July 06, 2009

Progenitor cells identified from human fetal hearts


July 1, 2009 | Fran Lowry

Boston, MA - Stem-cell researchers have identified a diverse set of human fetal islet-1 (ISL1+) cardiovascular progenitors that can differentiate into a family of cells that form the essential portions of the human heart. The discovery will allow the development of human models to study cardiovascular disease as well as new approaches for human regenerative cardiovascular medicine, they write in the July 2, 2009 issue of Nature [1].

Using two independent transgenic and gene-targeting approaches in human embryonic cell lines, the researchers, led by Dr Lei Bu (Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Cambridge, MA), showed that the purified ISL1+ primordial progenitors are able to self-renew and expand before they differentiate into cardiomyocytes and smooth-muscle- and endothelial-cell lineages./.../

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