To improve the results of the cellular therapy of heart disease, a better understanding of the biology of cardiac progenitor cells involved in the regeneration of cardiomyocytes and restoration of cardiac function.

Spanish scientists from the Madrid Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares found that cardiac mesangioblasts are precommitted precursor cells in the postnatal heart. The possibility of multiplying mesangioblasts in vitro and their differentiation in vitro and in vivo into cardiomyocytes involved in the restoration of cardiac tissue after damage.

In this study, scientists have shown that from the culture of human or mouse heart cells, two populations of mesangioblasts. Cells from both populations express similar surface markers, characteristic of cardiac precursors, transcription factors, but differ significantly in the number of mitochondria contained in the cells.

Slowly dividing cells contain many mitochondria; These cells under the action of 5-azacitidine are effectively differentiated into cardiomyocytes expressing structural markers of mature specialized cells.

In contrast, rapidly dividing mesangioblasts containing a smaller number of mitochondria do not respond to the effects of 5-azacitidine. With an increase in the number of mitochondria under the influence of nitric oxide, rapidly dividing cells also begin to differentiate into mature cardiomyocytes. With a decrease in the number of mitochondria in cells under the influence of inhibitors of the respiratory chain and chloramphenicol, the differentiation of slowly dividing mesangioblasts.

It was found that the mesangioblasts derived from the cardiac tissue of the elderly and old mice were almost all of the rapidly dividing population with a low mitochondrial content in the cells. These mesangioblasts became capable of differentiation into cardiomyocytes only after treatment with nitric oxide.

Thus, the results of the study indicate a key role for mitochondria in the differentiation of cardiac mesangioblasts into mature cardiomyocytes. According to Dr. P. Katunyan, the head physician of the Moscow Center for Biomedical Technologies, this opens up new opportunities for increasing the effectiveness of cellular therapy for heart diseases by influencing the number of mitochondria in progenitor cells.

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