Kasai-Brunswick TH, Carvalho AB, Campos de Carvalho AC. Stem cell therapies in cardiac diseases: Current status and future possibilities. World J Stem Cells 2021; 13(9): 1231-1247 [PMID: 34630860 DOI: 10.4252/wjsc.v13.i9.1231]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Antonio Carlos Campos de Carvalho, MD, PhD, Professor, Carlos Chagas Filho Institute of Biophysics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Av. Carlos Chagas Filho, No. 373, Room G2-053, Rio de Janeiro 21941-902, RJ, Brazil. acarlos@biof.ufrj.br
Research Domain of This Article
Research & Experimental Medicine
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Stem Cells. Sep 26, 2021; 13(9): 1231-1247 Published online Sep 26, 2021. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v13.i9.1231
Stem cell therapies in cardiac diseases: Current status and future possibilities
Tais Hanae Kasai-Brunswick, Adriana Bastos Carvalho, Antonio Carlos Campos de Carvalho
Tais Hanae Kasai-Brunswick, Antonio Carlos Campos de Carvalho, National Center of Structural Biology and Bioimaging, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-902, RJ, Brazil
Tais Hanae Kasai-Brunswick, Adriana Bastos Carvalho, Antonio Carlos Campos de Carvalho, National Institute of Science and Technology in Regenerative Medicine, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-902, RJ, Brazil
Adriana Bastos Carvalho, Antonio Carlos Campos de Carvalho, Carlos Chagas Filho Institute of Biophysics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-902, RJ, Brazil
Author contributions: Kasai-Brunswick TH and Carvalho AB wrote the manuscript and prepared the figure; Campos de Carvalho AC wrote the manuscript and revised the final version.
Supported byRio de Janeiro State Research Foundation, No. 252042, No. 250671 and No. 241703.
Conflict-of-interest statement: We declare no conflict of interest related to this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Antonio Carlos Campos de Carvalho, MD, PhD, Professor, Carlos Chagas Filho Institute of Biophysics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Av. Carlos Chagas Filho, No. 373, Room G2-053, Rio de Janeiro 21941-902, RJ, Brazil. acarlos@biof.ufrj.br
Received: March 1, 2021 Peer-review started: March 1, 2021 First decision: July 18, 2021 Revised: July 26, 2021 Accepted: August 10, 2021 Article in press: August 10, 2021 Published online: September 26, 2021
Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases represent the world’s leading cause of death. In this heterogeneous group of diseases, ischemic cardiomyopathies are the most devastating and prevalent, estimated to cause 17.9 million deaths per year. Despite all biomedical efforts, there are no effective treatments that can replace the myocytes lost during an ischemic event or progression of the disease to heart failure. In this context, cell therapy is an emerging therapeutic alternative to treat cardiovascular diseases by cell administration, aimed at cardiac regeneration and repair. In this review, we will cover more than 30 years of cell therapy in cardiology, presenting the main milestones and drawbacks in the field and signaling future challenges and perspectives. The outcomes of cardiac cell therapies are discussed in three distinct aspects: The search for remuscularization by replacement of lost cells by exogenous adult cells, the endogenous stem cell era, which pursued the isolation of a progenitor with the ability to induce heart repair, and the utilization of pluripotent stem cells as a rich and reliable source of cardiomyocytes. Acellular therapies using cell derivatives, such as microvesicles and exosomes, are presented as a promising cell-free therapeutic alternative.
Core Tip: The challenge to regenerate an adult heart has stimulated the field of stem cell therapies to search for a therapeutic alternative to promote robust cardiac repair. In this review, we will discuss several types of cell therapy, which have been used in cardiology, such as adult somatic cells and endogenous progenitor cells, presenting future perspectives with the use of cardiomyocytes derived from pluripotent stem cells and their extracellular vesicles.
