Isolation of ckit-Positive Cardiosphere-Forming Cells from Human Atrial Biopsy

There is increasing interest in developing cell-based therapies to regenerate functional muscle and blood vessels in infarcted dysfunctional myocardium, using stem cells resident in the adult heart. The objective of our study was to identify an easy and cost-effective method for the isolation and expansion of human adult cardiac-resident stem cells. The cells were isolated from right atrial biopsy samples obtained from patients with ischemic heart disease, who were undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting. Two different isolation methods, enzymatic and nonenzymatic, were employed. The cell yield and cluster formation were not significantly different with either of the techniques used for cell isolation. The nonenzymatic method is recommended because of its simplicity and lower cost compared to the enzymatic method.