Strategies for Myocardial Tissue Engineering: The Beat Goes On

The striving for the ability to build a piece of tissue that resembles the functional features of the heart muscle has been part of the scientific work for almost a century. More than any other organ, the constantly beating pump that drives the blood circulation, has been the focus of spectacular experimental breakthrough reports and subject to significant public interest. Beside the culture-related and religious reasons for the especial public attention that lies upon most medical and scientific work related to the heart, there are numerous matter-of-fact motivations to pay attention to the causes and the cure of heart disease. This work reviews the current strategies for the in vitro or in vivo reconstitution of myocardial tissue, including current concepts or the generation and implementation of extracellular matrix components, discussion of promising sources and culture techniques for the generation of cardiomyocytes or other cell populations necessary for the assembly of a functional myocardium, and finally limitations and perspectives of established myocardial tissue engineering models.