Treating Myocardial Infarction With Satellite Cells Autograft

Objective Human's cardiac myocytes are deficient of the ability of regeneration. It results in heart failure that a great deal of cardiac muscle cells die and the heart is reconstructed after myocardial infarction. Satellite cells (SCs) are skeletal stem cells, which play important roles in skeletal muscle repair. SCs autograft was tried to repair infracted myocardium and improve the heart function in this experiment.Materials and Methods 10 male immature Suzhong pigs were divided into the experimental group and the control group randomly. The SCs were extracted, purified, cultured by modified Dorfman method in the experimental group. After 4 weeks, the acute myocardial infarction models were made by ligating the second diagnal ramus, and the SCs were transplanted by intramyocardial injection in the experimental group while the culture medium was injected in the control group. The heart function of those pigs were evaluated with SPECT cardiac blood pool examination at 3 days before the tranlplantation, 1 week and 4 weeks after the transplantation. After the last examination, the animals were killed and the hearts were harvested. We observed the pathomorphology with light microscopy and transmission electron microscopy to find the mechanism in which SCs' autograft ameliorated the pigs' heart function.Results (1 )After cultured in vitro for 3 days, SCs were spindle-shaped, and sticked to walls. SCs1 growth were stasis and myotube-like structures formed when we delayed to divide Petri dishs or reduced the concentration ofFetus Bovine Serum (FBS) in the culture medium; (2)A 3 x 3cm2 penetrated myocardial infarction region formed in the anterior wall of the left ventricle after we ligated the second diagnal ramus. All function markers of the left ventricle descented obviously. (3)In the control group, there were homogeneous scars in the infarction regions, the fibroblasts proliferated, no remnant cardiac muscle cells. In the experimental group, neonatal multi-nuclei striated Muscle cells were observed in the infarction regions. These cells aligned in an accordant direction. Intercalated disks were not found between them. (4)The quota of left ventricular ejection fraction(EF), 1/3 left ventricular ejection fraction( 1/3EF), 1/3 left ventricular filling fraction(l/3FF) in the experimental group were better than those in the control group.Conclusions SCs could be easily harvested and cultured, and could live in the heart after autologous transplanting. There is no irnmunological rejection. SCs' autograft could improve the heart function by providing contract elements, ameliorating cardiac compliance and blocking the ventricle reconstitution process, which provides a new pathway to treat the ischemic heart diseases. In the future, SCs would be a carrier of gene therapy, which display the therapeutical effect by expressing the recombinated gene in the myocardial infarction microenvironment.