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Direct Reprogramming of Mouse Fibroblasts into Cardiac Myocytes

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Abstract

The potency of specific transcription factors as cell fate determinants was first demonstrated by the discovery of MyoD, a master gene for skeletal muscle transdifferentiation. More recently, the induction of pluripotency in somatic cells using a combination of stem cell-specific transcription factors has been reported. That elegant study altered the approach to regenerative medicine and inspired new strategies for generating specific cell types by introducing combinations of lineage-specific transcription factors. A diverse range of cell types, such as pancreatic β-cells, neurons, chondrocytes, and hepatocytes, can be induced from heterologous cells using lineage-specific reprogramming factors. Furthermore, functional cardiomyocytes can be generated directly from differentiated somatic cells using several combinations of cardiac-enriched defined factors in the mouse. The present article reviews the pioneering and recent studies in cellular reprogramming and discusses the perspectives and challenges of direct cardiac reprogramming in regenerative therapy.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to members of the Ieda laboratory for critical discussions and comments on the manuscript. The authors apologize to other authors whose work has not been cited due to space limitations. M.I. was supported by research grants from JST CREST, JSPS, Banyu Life Science, The Uehara Memorial Foundation, Japan Research Foundation for Clinical Pharmacology, and SENSHIN Medical Research Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical and Molecular Cardiovascular Research, Keio University School of Medicine, 35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 160-8582, Japan

    Kohei Inagawa & Masaki Ieda

  2. Department of Cardiology, Keio University School of Medicine, 35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 160-8582, Japan

    Kohei Inagawa & Masaki Ieda

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  1. Kohei Inagawa
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  2. Masaki Ieda
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Correspondence to Masaki Ieda.

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Inagawa, K., Ieda, M. Direct Reprogramming of Mouse Fibroblasts into Cardiac Myocytes. J. of Cardiovasc. Trans. Res. 6, 37–45 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12265-012-9412-5

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