Cardiovascular progenitor cells (CPCs), a type of heart cell, are called building blocks because they’re used to form the heart during fetal development. They hold tremendous therapeutic potential because of their unique ability to develop into several different heart cell types. Researchers are studying how CPC cells can renew themselves in mice. They’re studying whether this renewal also occurs in humans and whether this is useful for repairing damaged hearts. Because CPCs regenerate, scientists may be able to grow them in a dish. It’s not as easy to grow cells in a lab as it is in the body they often have “developmental arrest” and don’t mature. However, a recent discovery of the pathways that lead a fetal cell into an adult cell will enable researchers to recreate adult heart tissue in the lab, which holds tremendous potential for new heart disease treatment.

Cardiac progenitor cells are endogenous cardiac SCs that found to express tyrosine kinase receptors, c-Kit and other stemness features in adult heart, contributing to the regeneration of cardiac tissue after injury. This lineage is able to efficiently trans-differentiate into different cell types such as cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells, and smooth muscle cells. Noticeably, several cardiac progenitor cells have been identified until yet. CPCs are a mixed group of cells residing in different sites of the cardiac tissue such as epicardium, atria, and ventricles.CPCs have the abilities of self-renewing and could differentiate into all three main cell types of cardiac tissue including, cardiomyocytes, smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells.Multipotent cardiac progenitor cells are found in the fetal and adult heart of many mammalian species including humans and form as intermediates during the differentiation of embryonic stem cells. Cardiac progenitors migrate from the second heart field into the heart tube contributing cells to the atria, the right ventricle, and the outflow tract.

Major cardiovascular events including myocardial infarction (MI) continue to dominate morbidity rates in the developed world. Although multiple device therapies and various pharmacological agents have been shown to improve patient care and reduce mortality rates, clinicians and researchers alike still lack a true panacea to regenerate damaged cardiac tissue. Over the previous two to three decades, cardiovascular stem cell therapies have held great promise. Several stem cell-based approaches have now been shown to improve ventricular function and are documented in preclinical animal models as well as phase I and phase II clinical trials. More recently, the cardiac progenitor cell has begun to gain momentum as an ideal candidate for stem cell therapy in heart disease.