REGENERATING FUNCTIONAL MYOCARDIUM - IMPROVED PERFORMANCE AFTER SKELETAL MYOBLAST TRANSPLANTATION

The adult heart lacks reserve cardiocytes and cannot regenerate. There fore, a large acute myocardial infarction often develops into congesti ve heart failure. To attempt to prevent this progression, we transplan ted skeletal myoblasts into cryoinfarcted myocardium of the same rabbi ts tautologous transfer), monitored cardiac function in vivo for two t o six weeks and examined serial sections of the hearts by light and el ectron microscopy. Islands of different sizes comprising elongated, st riated cells that retained characteristics of both skeletal and cardia c cells were found in the cryoinfarct. In rabbits in which myoblasts w ere incorporated, myocardial performance was improved. The ability to regenerate functioning muscle after autologous myoblast transplantatio n could have a important effect on patients after acute myocardial inf arction.