Abstract
Stem-cell therapy holds great promise for the treatment of ischemic heart disease. However, the benefit of cardiac cell therapy has not yet been proven in long-term clinical trials. Poor engraftment and survival of transplanted cells is one of the major concerns for the successful application of stem cells in cardiac cell therapy. Cell and cardiac pre-conditioning are now being explored as new approaches to support cell survival and enhance the therapeutic efficacy. In this paper, we summarize the state-of-the-art methods of cell delivery and cell survival post-delivery, with a focus on the pre-conditioning approaches that have been attempted to support the survival of transplanted cells.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81100114), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (BK2008076) and Nanjing Medical Science and Technique Development Foundation.
Author disclosure statement: There is no conflict of interest in this paper.