Human cardiomyocyte progenitor cells: a short history of nearly everything

The high occurrence of cardiac disease in the Western world has driven clinicians and cardiovascular biologists to look for alternative strategies to treat patients. A challenging approach is the use of stem cells to repair the heart, in itself an inspiring thought. In the past 10 years, stem cells from different sources have been under intense investigation and, as a result, a multitude of studies have been published on the identification, isolation, and characterization, of cardiovascular progenitor cells and repair in different animal models. However, relatively few cardiovascular progenitor populations have been identified in human hearts, including, but not limited to, cardiosphere-derived cells [1], cKit+ human cardiac stem cells [2], Isl1+ cardiovascular progenitors [3], and, in our lab, cardiomyocyte progenitor cells (CMPCs) [4,5]. Here, we aim to provide a comprehensive summary of the past findings and present challenges for future therapeutic potential of CMPCs.