Nov 2, 2016 - Clinically, myocardial fibrosis is increasingly being recognized as a new ..... collagen in myocardial scar, which may be a promising direction for ...
www.nature.com/scientificreports
OPEN
received: 22 June 2016 accepted: 31 August 2016 Published: 02 November 2016
Mesenchymal Stem Cells Combined with Hepatocyte Growth Factor Therapy for Attenuating Ischaemic Myocardial Fibrosis: Assessment using Multimodal Molecular Imaging Huizhu Chen1,*, Rui Xia2,*, Zhenlin Li2,*, Lizhi Zhang2, Chunchao Xia2, Hua Ai3, Zhigang Yang2 & Yingkun Guo1 Clinically, myocardial fibrosis is increasingly being recognized as a new therapeutic target for ischaemic heart diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate whether noninvasive multimodal molecular imaging could be used to dynamically assess whether the combination of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) therapy can synergistically attenuate myocardial fibrosis after myocardial infarction (MI). MI was induced in 28 rats by coronary ligation with subsequent injection of BMSCs/HGF, BMSCs, HGF, or saline into the border zone under echocardiography guidance. The therapeutic procedure and treatment effects were tracked and assessed using bioluminescence imaging (BLI) and cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. Four weeks after transplantation therapy, cardiac MR imaging demonstrated that BMSC/HGF-treated animals showed better ejection fractions (p
