Finding Expandable Induced Cardiovascular Progenitor Cells

Cardiovascular progenitor cells (CPCs) are a promising cell source for cardiac regenerative therapy because of their ability for self-renewal and differentiation into various cardiovascular cell types beneficial for myocardial repair: cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle cells, and endothelial cells. Previous evaluations of exogenously derived CPCs have focused mainly on their capacity for trilineage differentiation rather than self-renewal because of the lack of an effective protocol to maintain and expand CPCs long-term in culture. In a recent issue of Cell Stem Cell, 2 groups of investigators independently reported their success in isolating, maintaining, and expanding mouse CPCs in culture for >18 to 20 passages (10(10)- to 10(15)-fold expansion), with faithful preservation of progenitor phenotype and ability for trilineage-restricted differentiation in both cell culture and mouse models of myocardial infarction (MI). This commentary will discuss the unique findings of these 2 studies, highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each CPC derivation/expansion technique, and propose additional steps necessary to accelerate their clinical translation.