Human Dental Pulp Stem Cells Improve Left Ventricular Function, Induce Angiogenesis, and Reduce Infarct Size in Rats with Acute Myocardial Infarction

Abstract Human dental pulp contains precursor cells termed dental pulp stem cells (DPSC) that show self-renewal and multilineage differentiation and also secrete multiple proangiogenic and antiapoptotic factors. To examine whether these cells could have therapeutic potential in the repair of myocardial infarction (MI), DPSC were infected with a retrovirus encoding the green fluorescent protein (GFP) and expanded ex vivo. Seven days after induction of myocardial infarction by coronary artery ligation, 1.5 × 106 GFP-DPSC were injected intramyocardially in nude rats. At 4 weeks, cell-treated animals showed an improvement in cardiac function, observed by percentage changes in anterior wall thic…