Intramyocardial Transplantation of Human iPS Cell–Derived Cardiac Spheroids Improves Cardiac Function in Heart Failure Animals
Shinji Kawaguchi, Y Soma, Kazuaki Nakajima, Hideaki Kanazawa, Shugo Tohyama, Ryota Tabei, Akinori Hirano, N. Handa, Yoshitake Yamada, Shigeo Okuda, Shuji Hishikawa, Takumi Teratani, Satoshi Kunita, Yoshikazu Kishino, Marina Okada, Sho Tanosaki, Shota Someya, Yuika Morita, Hidenori Tani, Yujiro Kawai, Masataka Yamazaki, Akira Itô, Rei Shibata, Toyoaki Murohara, Yasuhiko Tabata, Eiji Kobayashi, Hideyuki Shimizu, Keiichi Fukuda, Jun Fujita
Abstract
The severe shortage of donor hearts hampered the cardiac transplantation to patients with advanced heart failure. Therefore, cardiac regenerative therapies are eagerly awaited as a substitution. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are realistic cell source for regenerative cardiomyocytes. The hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes are highly expected to help the recovery of heart. Avoidance of teratoma formation and large-scale culture of cardiomyocytes are definitely necessary for clinical setting. The combination of pure cardiac spheroids and gelatin hydrogel succeeded to recover reduced ejection fraction. The feasible transplantation strategy including transplantation device for regenerative cardiomyocytes are established in this study.