In Vitro and In Vivo Cardiomyogenic Differentiation of Amniotic Fluid Stem Cells

# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 Abstract Cell therapy has developed as a complementary treatment for myocardial regeneration. While both autolo-gous and allogeneic uses have been advocated, the ideal candidate has not been identified yet. Amniotic fluid-derived stem (AFS) cells are potentially a promising resource for cell therapy and tissue engineering of myocardial injuries. However, no information is available regarding their use in an allogeneic context. c-kit-sorted, GFP-positive rat AFS (GFP-rAFS) cells and neonatal rat cardiomyocytes (rCMs) were characterized by cytocentrifugation and flow cytometry for the expression of mesenchymal, embryonic and cell lineage-specific antigens. The activation of the myocardial Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12015-010-9200-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users