Evidence for cardiomyocyte renewal in humans

By O. Bergmann, R. Bhardwaj, Samuel Bernard, Sofia Zdunek, F. Barnabé-Heider, Stuart Walsh, Joel Zupicich, K. Alkass, B. Buchholz, H. Druid and 2 more. Science, 2008

3,107 citations recorded by the source corpus.

It has been difficult to establish whether we are limited to the heart muscle cells we are born with or if cardiomyocytes are generated also later in life. We have taken advantage of the integration of carbon-14, generated by nuclear bomb tests during the Cold War, into DNA to establish the age of cardiomyocytes in humans. We report that cardiomyocytes renew, with a gradual decrease from 1% turning over annually at the age of 25 to 0.45% at the age of 75. Fewer than 50% of cardiomyocytes are exchanged during a normal life span. The capacity to generate cardiomyocytes in the adult human heart suggests that it may be rational to work toward the development of therapeutic strategies aimed at stimulating this process in cardiac pathologies.

Subfields: Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b52171eedc84221c975214a5f0be4d5ff866c5cb

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine

1. James B. Strait
2. Joseph A. Hill
3. E. Lakatta

In Molecular Biology

1. J. Frisén
2. K. Spalding
3. O. Bergmann
4. A. Caplan
5. M. Laflamme
6. E. Zeisberg
7. Joseph A. Hill
8. J. Hare

Citations in the corpus

• Cardiomyocyte proliferation contributes to heart growth in young humans (2013, methodology): “Radiocarbon birth dating has shown that a small portion of cardiomyocytes is replaced in humans older than 20 y (16), but this technique is unreliable for the analysis of recent samples from individuals younger than 20 y of age (17).”
• Dynamics of hippocampal neurogenesis in adult humans (2013, methodology): “Mathematical modelling of the turnover rates (14)C data modelling was based on an approach developed previously (Bergmann et al. 2009).”
• Dynamics of Cell Generation and Turnover in the Human Heart. (2015, methodology): “Many cardiomyocyte nuclei undergo DNA synthesis to become polyploid in humans (Adler, 1991; Bergmann et al., 2009; Herget et al., 1997; Mollova et al., 2013).”
• Pathological Ventricular Remodeling: Mechanisms: Part 1 of 2 (2013, background): “Cardiomyocyte hypertrophy is more pronounced in aged heart, contributing to cardiac dysfunction,(167) and the intrinsic capacity of the heart to regenerate diminishes with aging.(46,168) by gest on O cber (1)1, 2017 http://ciajournals.”
• The Oxygen Rich Postnatal Environment Induces Cardiomyocyte Cell Cycle Arrest Through DNA Damage Response (2014, positive): “…the adult heart to regenerate lost or damaged myocardium, and although limited myocyte turnover does occur in the adult heart, it is insufficient for restoration of contractile dysfunction (Bergmann et al., 2009; Hsieh et al., 2007; Laflamme et al., 2002; Nadal-Ginard, 2001; Quaini et al., 2002).”
• Mesenchymal stem cell perspective: cell biology to clinical progress (2019, background): “brain neurons, chondrocytes, and cardiomyocytes where the cell half-life is on the order of ~50 years.(132) When a tissue is damaged by trauma or disease, these regenerative repair processes may be accelerated, but this capacity diminishes with age, and each tissue ages somewhat differently.”
• The Origin of Fibroblasts and Mechanism of Cardiac Fibrosis (2010, background): “Although cardiomyocytes were thought to be terminally differentiated and incapable of proliferation, recent data indicate that adult cardiomyocytes in fact proliferate slowly, which may be an essential part of cardiac homeostasis and turnover (Bergmann et al., 2009).”
• Adult Neurogenesis in Humans. (2015, methodology): “Relating the measured genomic (14)C concentration to atmospheric levels establishes the birth date of cells and their turnover dynamics (Spalding et al. 2005a, 2008; Bhardwaj et al. 2006; Bergmann et al. 2009).”
• Heart Regeneration (2011, background): “The first approach, by Bergmann et al.34, was based on the worldwide pulse of 14C that occurred during the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the cold war.”