Discoveries in cardiovascular stem cell biology, myocyte regeneration, and cell transplantation have enormous clinical potentials, yet the field is embroiled in amusing controversies.1–3 The existence of cardiac myocyte progenitor cells (CPCs) in the adult heart, let alone the identity of the genuine CPCs, has been debated and so has the relevance of the primary candidate, namely the resident cardiac progenitor cells expressing the KIT antigen (KITpos cells), to cardiac myocyte generation.1,2,4 Similarly, the choice of the cells, delivery approach, and efficacy of cell transplantation in improving cardiovascular outcomes have remained unsettled as has been the elusive nature of the paracrine factors that are presumably responsible for the improvement in cardiac function post-cell transplantation. Consequently, given these ambiguities, basic and clinical investigators are in the quest to seek the holy grail of CPCs; cells that possess genuine capacities to survive, thrive, differentiate to working myocytes, properly couple with the neighboring resident myocytes; electrically and mechanically, enhance cardiac function, and improve the clinical outcomes, without causing serious adverse events. Similarly, there is an intense focus on defining the responsible mechanisms and identifying and characterizing the elusive paracrine factors. Article, see p 1224 The Hippo pathway, first discovered in Drosophila and aptly named after hippopotamus because of its key role in determining organ size, is a contact-dependent pathway that regulates cell growth, survival, proliferation, and differentiation.5,6 The pathway comprises a series of upstream molecules that are linked to cell junctions and are sensitive to cell–cell contact. The upstream molecules are also responsive to mechanical properties of cell environment and cell cytoskeleton, particularly actin filament organization. On sensing the stimuli, the upstream Hippo molecules activate a …

中文翻译：

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寻找心脏祖细胞的圣杯

心血管干细胞生物学，心肌细胞再生和细胞移植方面的发现具有巨大的临床潜力，但该领域仍充满有趣的争议。1–3在成年心脏中存在心脏心肌祖细胞（CPC），更不用说真正的CPC一直在争论中，主要候选者（表达KIT抗原的常驻心脏祖细胞（KITpos细胞））与心肌细胞的生成也存在争议。1,2,4同样，选择细胞时，由于旁分泌因子的难以捉摸的性质可能推测是导致细胞移植后心脏功能改善的原因，因此尚未确定细胞递送方法和细胞移植改善心血管预后的功效。因此，鉴于这些歧义，基础和临床研究人员正在寻求CPC的圣杯；具有真正的生存，繁殖，分化为正常工作的心肌细胞能力的细胞，并与邻近的常驻心肌细胞适当偶联；电动和机械方式，可增强心脏功能并改善临床结果，而不会引起严重的不良事件。同样，人们非常关注定义负责任的机制以及识别和表征难以捉摸的旁分泌因子。文章，见第1224页。Hippo途径是在接触果蝇中首次发现，因其决定器官大小的关键作用而被恰当地命名为河马，它是一种依赖于接触的途径，可调节细胞的生长，存活，增殖和分化。5，6该途径包括一系列上游分子，这些上游分子与细胞连接相连，并且对细胞间的接触敏感。上游分子还对细胞环境和细胞骨架，特别是肌动蛋白丝组织的机械性能有反应。在感知刺激时，上游河马分子激活了……