Viral Inflammation Mobilizes Stem Cells

Shanghai, China -

It is known that various stem cell types, including mesenchymal and hematopoietic have the ability to home to injured tissue. Mechanisms of homing usually are associated with agents such as stromal derived factor-1 which is associated with bone marrow stroma (secreted at a basal rate) or hypoxic tissue.

Most injury models people study include myocardial infarction and stroke, however numerous other types of injury to tissue may occur that can induce stem cell homing. One interesting area is in viral infections. A recent paper (Zhao et al. Temporal changes in stem cells in the circulation and myocardium of mice with Coxsackie virus B3-induced myocarditis. Microvasc Res. 2007 Nov 9) used a mouse model of viral myocarditis to assess the endogenous stem cell response to this type of injury.

The investigators found that coxsackie infected mice had peak levels of circulating mesenchymal stem cells on day 3 post infection while hematopoietic cells remained elevated for 14 days post inoculation.

These data appear to be the first demonstration of stem cell mobilization post viral inflammation. It is however unclear what the impact of this stem cell mobilization is on regeneration of the myocardium.

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