A number of different cell types are required for the development of the human heart. Understanding the differentiation of these cell types has been difficult due to the lack of appropriate genetic tools. Recently, HSCI Executive Committee member Ken Chien, MD, PhD and colleagues achieved a major breakthrough in the field by identifying a set of progenitor cells, ISL1(+) cells, that give rise to the major cardiac cell lineages - cardiomyocyte, smooth muscle, and endothelial cell lineages - in the human heart. These findings pave the way for creating new human models of heart disease and investigating new approaches to cardiac regenerative medicine.

Bu, L., Jiang, X., Martin-Puig, S., Caron, L., Zhu, S., Shao, Y., Roberts, D.J., Huang, P.L., Domian, I.J., Chien, K.R. (2009). Human ISL1 heart progenitors generate diverse multipotent cardiovascular cell lineages. Nature 460, 113-7.