Abstract
Adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are an attractive cell source for cardiovascular repair. Injection of MSCs into damaged heart was shown to improve cardiac functions. However, these cells are still multipotent, and hence can transdifferentiate within the heart to osteocytes, adipocytes, etc. This obstacle may be solved by prior in vitro induction of MSCs toward cardiomyocytes. This study aims to investigate the potential of human adipose tissue (ad)-derived MSCs to differentiate in vitro into cardiomyocytes using angiotensin II in combination with the demethylating agent 5-azacytidine (AZA). Ad biopsy samples were collected; MSCs were isolated, and passage 3 cells were stimulated with AZA and angiotensin II for 3 weeks. Expression of cardiac markers was assessed by immunohistochemistry and by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Angiotensin II and AZA were not able to induce differentiation of human ad-MSCs into cardiomyocytes. They failed to promote expression of the cardiac-specific genes, and the induction of cardiac-specific proteins were not detected by immunohistochemistry except for alpha actin. Thus, conditioned treatment is not sufficient for ad-MSCs differentiation in vitro to cardiomyocytes, and thus there are other essential factors in the cardiac niche affecting differentiation in vivo.
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