Umbilical cord blood for cardiovascular cell therapy

© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York. All rights reserved. Cardiovascular diseases, including atherosclerosis, hypertension, and heart failure, remain major causes of morbidity and mortality with substantial economic cost worldwide. Unlike other vertebrate animals, it was postulated that heart cells in adult mammals did not have self-regenerative potential. However, the basic foundations of cardiac regeneration changed radically in the 1990s owing to pioneering studies with significant biological and clinical implications. Since then, most efforts have been directed to repair myocardial tissue and the supportive vascular system using cells with regenerative potential. In this context, to highlight the great potential of UCB in human regenerative medicine, we first provide a broad overview of current advances, pitfalls, and future goals, focusing on cardiac regeneration. We then show UCB, in the context of other existing potential cell sources, as a rich reservoir of both hematopoietic and nonhematopoietic cells with regenerative capacity. We finally recount ongoing research using UCB-derived cells, focused on cardiovascular cell therapy.