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Panminerva Medica 2004 March;46(1):81-91

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Myogenic cellular transplantation and regeneration: sorting through progenitor heterogeneity

Jankowski R. J. ^{1, 2}, Huard J. ^{1, 2, 3}

¹ Growth and Development Laboratory Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA 2 Bioengineering Department University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA 3 Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Growth and regen­er­a­tion of skel­e­tal mus­cle ­fibers in ­response to inju­ry are ­made pos­sible by the pres­ence of res­i­dent myo­gen­ic pro­gen­i­tor ­cells. Researchers ­have attempt­ed to iso­late and trans­plant ­these ­cells to regen­er­ate new mus­cle in cas­es involv­ing inju­ry, dis­ease, or genet­ic defi­cien­cies. Reports ­from ­such experi­ments under­score the func­tion­al diver­sity of pro­gen­i­tors ­obtained ­from skel­e­tal mus­cle; how­ev­er, cur­rent­ly ­there is no reli­able ­means by ­which to pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fy and iso­late the ­most desir­able mus­cle pro­gen­i­tor pop­u­la­tions. Taking a cue ­from the hemat­o­poiet­ic com­mu­nity, research­ers in ­this ­area ­have ­begun to inves­ti­gate ­cell sur­face pro­tein expres­sion in pro­gen­i­tor pop­u­la­tions. Previous find­ings in cul­tured myo­gen­ic ­cells and our ­results in ­cells ­obtained direct­ly ­from dis­so­ci­at­ed mus­cle sus­pen­sions indi­cate ­that ­cells sort­ed ­based on ­their expres­sion of the com­mon­ly-stud­ied myo­gen­ic ­cell sur­face pro­teins Sca-1 and CD34 exhib­it dif­fer­ing regen­er­a­tive abil­ities. However, ­results ­obtained to ­date are insuf­fi­cient to clear­ly delin­eate wheth­er the expres­sion of ­either of ­these pro­teins is an exclu­sive char­ac­ter­is­tic of effi­cient myo­gen­ic pro­gen­i­tors. Nonetheless, obser­va­tions ­from ­these stud­ies clear­ly sug­gest ­that pro­gen­i­tor het­ero­ge­ne­ity ­should be an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion dur­ing the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of mus­cle regen­er­a­tion strat­e­gies. Additional ­research is nec­es­sary to estab­lish reli­able selec­tion cri­te­ria for the iso­la­tion of effi­cient pro­gen­i­tors, ­which ­will facil­i­tate ther­a­peu­tic dis­cov­er­ies and ­enhance our under­stand­ing of fac­tors affect­ing regen­er­a­tion out­comes.