BACKGROUND: Acute treatment with bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) reduces
myocardial infarct size by multiple mechanisms, including the paracrine release of protective
growth factors. Female MSCs produce more growth factor when stressed; therefore, we
hypothesized that myocardial protection provoked by female MSCs would be greater than
that elicited by male MSCs. METHODS: Hearts were subjected to 25 min of warm global
ischemia, 40 min of reperfusion, and randomly assigned into one of three groups:(1) vehicle …

Background: Stem cell therapy is a promising treatment modality for injured cardiac tissue. A
novel mechanism for this cardioprotection may include paracrine actions. Acute treatment
with bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSC) reduces infarct size by multiple
mechanisms, including the release of protective growth factors. Unlike their embryonic
counterparts, progenitors cells from adults do possess the alpha and beta estrogen
receptors. Interestingly, no study has addressed whether gender differences exist in BMSC …