Human Embryonic Stem Cells Provide Clues about
Fetal Heart Progenitors Richard Mollard, MBA PhD*
In a recent report in Nature (Nature Publishing Group, 2008), Yang and colleagues described the production of heart progenitor-like cells from human embryonic stem cells1. These heart progenitor cells are capable of producing cells displaying properties of both heart muscle and blood vessels.
Progenitor cells are found throughout the body and are responsible for the formation of specific tissue systems during development and/or the maintenance of these systems during adult life. In some adult organs, certain progenitors are not readilyidentifiable or easily studied because they may have existed exclusively or only in significant numbers in the developing fetus. Due to technical limitations, it is currently untenable to identify and directly study the properties of such early progenitors in developing human fetuses.
As in humans, progenitor cells in fetal mice similarly participate in organ formation during development. In contrast to their human equivalents, mouse progenitors can more easily be studied directly and in some cases, such as the heart, they are relatively well characterised 2,3,4. Of further significance, several early developmental events in mice involving the formation of organs (such as the heart) from progenitor cells can be mimicked using mouse embryonic stem cells.
In their report, Yang and colleagues used information generated by studying mouse development and mouse embryonic stem cells to produce cells with characteristics of heart progenitors from human embryonic stem cells. These human heart-like progenitors could beat in synchrony and be controlled to display similar electrical characteristics to normal heart tissue. Furthermore, these progenitors could be controlled by means of a protein supplement to also produce structures that resembled blood vessels.
The progenitor cells produced from human embryonic stem cells by Yang and colleagues are significant for many reasons. These reasons include:
they provide a means by which researchers may study early heart development in humans, to better understand congenital abnormalities.
they provide a source of cells to test medications such as pharmaceutical compounds that, for example, correct irregular heartbeats.
they provide a cell population for engineering tissue that may be used to study heart function in large animals.
Notes
View beating cells derived from embryonic stem cells
Click below to view a video of beating heart cells.
Credit: Keller Lab
References
1. Yang, L., Soonpaa, M. H., Adler, E. D., Roepke, T. K., Kattman, S. J., Kennedy, M., Henckaerts, E., Bonham, K., Abbott, G. W., Linden, R. M., et al. (2008). Human cardiovascular progenitor cells develop from a KDR(+) embryonic-stem-cell-derived population. Nature. doi:10.1038/nature06894.
2. Kattman, S. J., Huber, T. L., and Keller, G. M. (2006). Multipotent flk-1+ cardiovascular progenitor cells give rise to the cardiomyocyte, endothelial, and vascular smooth muscle lineages. Dev Cell 11, 723-732.
3. Moretti, A., Caron, L., Nakano, A., Lam, J. T., Bernshausen, A., Chen, Y., Qyang, Y., Bu, L., Sasaki, M., Martin-Puig, S., et al. (2006). Multipotent embryonic isl1+ progenitor cells lead to cardiac, smooth muscle, and endothelial cell diversification. Cell 127, 1151-1165.
4. Wu, S. M., Fujiwara, Y., Cibulsky, S. M., Clapham, D. E., Lien, C. L., Schultheiss, T. M., and Orkin, S. H. (2006). Developmental origin of a bipotential myocardial and smooth muscle cell precursor in the mammalian heart. Cell 127, 1137-1150.
*Author affiliation
Richard Mollard, MBA PhD
Head: Stem Cells, Respiratory Development and Tissue Engineering
The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Monash University
Australia
