Clinical & Hospital Pharmacy

Cardiac fibroblasts are interstitial cells showing substantial self-duplication ability and having a critical role in heart function through interactions with the myocardial compartment. Recently, they have been extensively used for creating functional bioengineered cardiac tissues and are considered attractive candidates for cell-based therapies. However, both in health and disease, cardiac fibroblasts present heterogeneous characteristics according to the development stage of the heart and the associated molecular mechanisms leading to the improvement of tissue properties are not fully understood. Here we show that a specific type of human cardiac fibroblasts expressing VCAM-1 (VCFs) can stimulate human cardiomyocyte proliferation in vitro and that both human and rat cells allow substantially improved recovery of heart function after surgically induced ischemic injury in vivo. One week after ischemia-reperfusion injury, rats received VCFs or medium by injections in the infarcted area. Eighteen (18) weeks after injections, echocardiography revealed an improvement of Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction (LVEF) by 32.6% in rats having received VCFs compared to controls. Moreover, systolic and diastolic functions in rats injected with VCFs or with cardiomyocytes show no significant differences. These results suggest a direct effect of fibroblasts on resident myocardial cells. Overall, these findings show that VCFs have a significant therapeutic potential making them advantageous for cost-effective cell-based therapy for heart failure linked to ischemic diseases.