Studying the diversity and epigenetic states of cardiac stem cells after ageing and rejuvenation
Developmental Biology
Cell Biology
Final Report Abstract
The work conducted at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Sydney focused on understanding the diversity and fate of cardiac stem cells, termed cardiac colony forming unit fibroblasts (cCFU-Fs), in vivo. The Harvey group proposes that these cells which form mesenchymal stem/stromal cell (MSC)-like cultures, may function to repair the heart in a pathological condition or damage. We hypothesized that cCFU-Fs serve as a progenitor population for various cardiac cell types. Like MSCs, cCFU-Fs display great heterogeneity and subsets of progenitor cells, should have been defined, as wells as the underlying molecular and epigenetic mechanisms. Furthermore, the concept of stem cell rejuvenation in aged and compromised tissue should have been studied by the use of genome tools and bioinformatics to profile changes in the epigenetic states of cardiac stem cells. In order to address and understand heterogeneity of cardiac stem cells, single cell gene expression profiling has been used. During my research fellowship, I managed to establish the necessary and sophisticated methods to perform single cell gene expression and epigenetic profiling of cardiac CFU-Fs. Data obtained from this first analysis could enable a deep analysis of heterogeneity and could be further compared to that of the same fraction from MI as well as aged mice, corresponding to activated and senescent phenotypes, respectively.
Publications
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Cardiac Regeneration Therapies – Targeting Neuregulin 1 Signalling. Heart Lung Circ. 2016 Jan;25(1):4-7
Harvey RP, Wystub-Lis K, del Monte-Nieto G, Graham RM, Tzahor E.
