Mechanical and Chemical Predifferentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Into Cardiomyocytes and Their Effectiveness on Acute Myocardial Infarction

Myocardial infarction is one of the leading causes of death all over the world. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) transplantation has shown a promising potential to recovery of ischemic heart disease due to their capability in differentiating into cardiac cells. However, various investigations have been performed to optimize the efficacy of cardiac cell therapy in recent years. Here, we sought to interrogate the effect of autologous transplantation of undifferentiated and predifferentiated adipose and bone marrow-derived MSCs in a rabbit model of myocardial infarction and also to investigate whether cardiac function could be improved by mechanically induced MSCs via equiaxial cyclic strain. The two sources of MSCs were induced toward cardiomyocyte phenotype using mechanical loading and chemical factors and thereafter injected into the infarcted myocardium of 35 rabbits. Echocardiography and histopathology studies were used to evaluate cardiac function after 2 months. The results demonstrated significant scar size reduction and greater recovery of left ventricle ejection fraction after transplantation of predifferentiated cells, though the differences were not significant when comparing mechanically with chemically predifferentiated MSCs. Thus, although there was no significant improvement in infarcted myocardium between chemically and mechanically predifferentiated MSCs, mechanically induced cells are more preferred due to lack of any chemical intervention and cost reasonableness in their preparation method. Outcomes of this study may be useful for developing future therapeutic strategies, however long-term assessments are still required to further examine their effectiveness.