1. Myocardial Telocyte-Like Cells: A Review Including New Evidence
- Author
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Laurenţiu Mogoantă, Sorin Hostiuc, Mugurel Constantin Rusu, Cristian Bogdan Iancu, and Mihai Grigoriu
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,CD31 ,Cell type ,Pathology ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Receptor, Platelet-Derived Growth Factor alpha ,Histology ,CD34 ,Antigens, CD34 ,Vimentin ,03 medical and health sciences ,Interstitial space ,Telocyte ,medicine ,Animals ,Humans ,Telocytes ,biology ,CD117 ,Myocardium ,Stem Cells ,Immunohistochemistry ,Actins ,Platelet Endothelial Cell Adhesion Molecule-1 ,Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-kit ,030104 developmental biology ,biology.protein ,Anatomy ,Pericytes - Abstract
Telocytes (TCs) are a controversial cell type characterized by the presence of a particular kind of prolongations, known as telopodes, which are long, thin, and moniliform. A number of attempts has been made to establish the molecular phenotype of cardiac TCs (i.e., expression of c-kit, CD34, vimentin, PDGRFα, PDGRFβ, etc.). We designed an immunohistochemical study involving cardiac tissue samples obtained from 10 cadavers with the aim of determining whether there are TC-like interstitial cells that populate the interstitial space other than the mural microvascular cells. We applied the markers for CD31, CD34, PDGRFα, CD117/c-kit, and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA). We found that, in relation to two-dimensional cuts, the endothelial tubes could be misidentified as TC-like cells, the difference being the positive identification of endothelial lumina. Moreover, we found that cardiac pericytes express PDGRFα, CD117/c-kit, and α-SMA, and that they could also be misidentified as TCs when using light microscopy. We reviewed the respective values of the previously identified markers for achieving a clear-cut identification of cardiac TCs, highlighting the critical lack of specificity.
- Published
- 2018
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