Pluripotent stem cell derived cardiovascular progenitors – A developmental perspective

• Published in: Developmental biology Vol. 400; no. 2; pp. 169 - 179
• Main Authors: Birket, Matthew J., Mummery, Christine L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 15.04.2015
• Subjects: Animals; Cardiac; Cardiomyocyte; Cardiovascular Diseases - therapy; Cell Differentiation; Cell Proliferation; Humans; Myocytes, Cardiac - cytology; Pluripotent; Pluripotent Stem Cells - cytology; Progenitors; Signal Transduction; Stem Cells - cytology; Pluripotent; Progenitors; Cardiac; Cardiomyocyte
• ISSN: 0012-1606; 1095-564X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2015.01.012

Human pluripotent stem cells can now be routinely differentiated into cardiac cell types including contractile cardiomyocytes, enabling the study of heart development and disease in vitro, and creating opportunities for the development of novel therapeutic interventions for patients. Our grasp of the system, however, remains partial, and a significant reason for this has been our inability to effectively purify and expand the intermediate cardiovascular progenitor cells (CPCs) equivalent to those studied in heart development. Doing so could facilitate the construction of a cardiac lineage cell fate map, boosting our capacity to more finely control stem cell lineage commitment to functionally distinct cardiac identities, as well as providing a model for identifying which genes confer cardiac potential on CPCs. This review offers a perspective on CPC development as understood from model organisms and pluripotent stem cell systems, focusing on issues of identity as well as the signalling implicated in inducing, expanding and patterning these cells. •The identity of cardiovascular progenitor cells (CPCs) remains ill-defined.•Achieving CPC-expansion from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) is of great importance.•We review what is known about CPCs from developmental biology.•We discuss how this knowledge might be applied to the PSC field.