Regenerative cell therapy and pharmacotherapeutic intervention in heart failure - Part 1: Cardiovascular progenitor cells, their functions and sources

It has been postulated that bone marrow derived endothelial progenitor cells (BM-EPCs) are essential for neovascularisation and endothelial repair and arc involved in pharmacological treatment, and even its potential targets. There is no doubt that the ultimate success of angiogenic cell therapy will be determined by an appropriate stimulation of certain angiogenic progenitor cell subpopulations. Unfortunately, the biology of EPCs is still poorly understood. In particular, the understanding of endogenous microenvironments within the progenitor cell niches is critical, mid will provide Lis with information about the signalling systems that supply a basis to develop rational pharmacotherapy to enhance the functional activity of endogenous or transplanted progenitor cells. The final success of clinical improvement of progenitor cell-mediated vascular repair and angiogenic therapy depends on a better understanding of EPC biology and a Stuart therapeutic design. In the first part of this review we first briefly discuss the possible involvement of progenitor cells in chronic heart failure. In part 2 we focus oil factors that beneficially affect BM-EPCs, with an emphasis on pharmacological molecular pathways involved in BM-EPC-induced neovascularisation.