The building blocks for cardiac repair : isolation and differentiation of progenitor cells from the human heart

Unfortunately cardiovascular disease is very common, which makes it important to gain a better understanding of how we can restore the 'broken' heart after injury . Progenitor cells can serve as the 'building blocks ' for cardiac repair. Cardiac progenitor cells, which are the focus of t his thesis, can be derived from either the myocardial (CPCs) or epicardial (EPDCs) layer of the heart. Based on the idea that we want to isolate CPCs and EPDCs from the human heart and eventually use these cells for cardiac regeneration, in this thesis the f ollowing questions were investigated: • Which marker scan recognize CPCs within human cardiac tissue and how can we efficiently isolate EPDCs? ( Pa r t 1) • Which factors play a role in CPC and EPDC behavior? (Part 2) In Chapter 3, 4 and 5 novel antibodies for the isolation of CPCs are introduced and a new method to isolate and expand EPDCs is presented in Chapter 6. We studied human CPC to cardiomyocyte differentiation in Chapter 7 and questioned, in Chapter 8, whether extraembryonic endoderm-derived cells can support human cardiomyocyte differ entiation in vitro. Finally, we studied the TGFbet a signaling pathway, including its co-receptor Endoglin, in regulating EPDC behavior in Chapter 9 and 10.