Current therapies for heart failure after myocardial infarction are limited and non-curative. Although regenerative approaches are receiving significant attention, clinical efforts that involve transplantation of presumed stem and progenitor cells have largely failed to deliver. Recent studies of endogenous heart regeneration in model organisms, such as zebrafish and neonatal mice, are yielding mechanistic insights into the roles of cardiomyocyte proliferation, resident stem cell niches, neovascularization, the immune system and the extracellular matrix. These findings have revealed novel pathways that could be therapeutically targeted to stimulate repair following myocardial infarction and have provided lessons to guide future efforts towards heart regeneration through cellular reprogramming or cardiomyocyte transplantation.

目前对心肌梗塞后心力衰竭的治疗是有限的并且是非治愈性的。尽管再生方法受到了极大的关注，但涉及假定干细胞和祖细胞移植的临床努力在很大程度上未能实现。最近对模型生物（例如斑马鱼和新生小鼠）中内源性心脏再生的研究正在对心肌细胞增殖、常驻干细胞生态位、新生血管形成、免疫系统和细胞外基质的作用产生机制见解。这些发现揭示了新的途径，这些途径可以在治疗上靶向刺激心肌梗死后的修复，并为指导未来通过细胞重编程或心肌细胞移植实现心脏再生的努力提供了经验教训。