Abstract
It has been proposed that thymosin beta 4 (TB4)-protein delivery stimulates differentiation of resident adult WT1-positive cardiac progenitor cells, but with very low efficiency. We determined whether gene therapy with human TB4 stimulates proliferation of resident adult cardiac progenitor cells in normal rat heart. Ultrasound-targeted microbubble destruction (UTMD) was used to deliver the human TB4 gene under a piggybac transposon plasmid to normal rat heart. The rat hearts were assayed by quantitative reverse transcription–PCR and immunohistology with a confocal microscope at 1, 2, 3, 4 and 12 weeks after UTMD. Exogenous TB4 stimulation resulted in the presence of WT1-positive cardiac progenitor cells from epicardium to endocardium. TB4 stimulated angiogenesis and arteriogenesis. One month after TB4 gene therapy by UTMD, the percentage of NKX2.5-positive cardiomyocytes was 5.5±1.0% and NKX2.5 mRNA was 24-fold higher than in the control groups (P<0.001). Similar results were found for ISL-1, BrDu, Ki-67, PHH3 and aurora B (P<0.001). Cardiac-specific delivery of exogenous human TB4 gene efficiently stimulates proliferation and differentiation of resident WT1-positive adult cardiac progenitor cells into three intact cardiac cell lineages—vascular endothelial cells, coronary artery smooth muscle cells and cardiac muscle cells in normal adult rat heart.
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Change history
07 February 2013
This article has been corrected since online publication and a corrigendum is also printed in this issue
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Chen, S., Shimoda, M., Chen, J. et al. Stimulation of adult resident cardiac progenitor cells by durable myocardial expression of thymosin beta 4 with ultrasound-targeted microbubble delivery. Gene Ther 20, 225–233 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/gt.2012.89
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/gt.2012.89
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