Gelatin-hydrogel Blended Cardiomyocytes Ameliorate Cardiac Function Post Myocardial Infarction

Abstract

Cell transplantation therapy with induced pluripotent stem cells is the novel one to resolve the donor shortage in cardiac transplantation; however it was not elucidated how effectively transplanted cardiomyocytes (CMs) restore cardiac function after myocardial infarction (MI). Therefore we evaluated the effects of CMs transplantation with gelatin-hydrogel (GH) to infarcted hearts, and analyzed their mechanism. MI was induced with cryoinjury in nude rats (8 weeks old). Fetal rat CMs (5×106cells) with GH were transplanted to infarcted hearts at one week after MI. We compared this group with sham group, CMs in PBS group, and GH in PBS group. At three weeks after transplantation, cardiac function was evaluated with an echocardiography, and the numbers of transplanted cells and angiogenesis were also assessed by immunostaining and qRT-PCR. The echocardiography showed that CMs in PBS group failed to ameliorate cardiac function. On the other hand, CMs with GH group significantly improved cardiac function (p<0.05). Historical analyses demonstrated the transplantation of CMs with GH resulted in efficient CMs' engraftment and marked development of angiogenesis (p<0.05). qRT-PCR of VEGF also tended to be rich in CMs with GH group (p=0.07). Here, we reports GH confined the CMs effectively in myocardium after transplantation, and transplanted CMs significantly improved cardiac function with direct contraction effect and angiogenesis.