Potential Mechanisms Underlying Therapeutic Benefits of Stem Cell for Heart Failure

Abstract

Stem cell therapy has been tested for cardiac disease therapy for decades. Initially, researchers only considered stem cells’ differentiative ability to repair damaged cardiac tissue. However, studies have now uncovered novel mechanisms contributing to stem cell healing properties to repair injured cardiac tissue, including via paracrine signaling and exosome secretions, leading to amelioration of cardiac remodeling and enhancement of proliferation, regeneration and survival of stem cell-derived cardiac cells. Understanding these underlying mechanisms could help researchers utilize stem cells as a therapeutic strategy for cardiac disease effectively and address the current limitations, mainly surrounding its survival and differentiative ability in the cardiac milieu. This review will discuss the known potential mechanisms underlying the role of stem cells in contributing to and for the treatment of heart diseases.