# Electrical stimulation of human CPCs

> **NIH NIH R01** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $390,000

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT: Nearly 1 in every 120 children born has a congenital heart defect (CHD).
While surgical therapy has improved survival, many of these children go on to develop heart failure (HF). The
emergence of cardiovascular regenerative medicine as a potential therapeutic strategy for pediatric HF has
provided new avenues for treatment. While primarily tried in adults, stem cell therapy is relatively untested in
the pediatric population. It is thus critical to develop novel methods of exploring the regenerative potential of
these cells to improve therapeutic interventions in the pediatric population. Stem cell based therapies have
shown beneficial effects on several cardiovascular diseases in adults, and cardiac-derived c-kit+ progenitor
cells (CPCs), a progenitor cell found in the myocardium, have met with early success in a clinical trial in adults.
Due to the ability to readily isolate these cells from CHD patients during surgery, their capacity to proliferate in
culture, and their ease of manipulation, pediatric CPCs serve as an ideal cell population for regenerative
medicine. However, previous studies have shown that unless these cells are extracted at a very young age (<1
month) the therapeutic efficacy of these cells is diminished. With the vast majority of patients undergoing
surgery for CHDs >1 month old, finding novel ways to enhance the regenerative potential of these cells would
overcome this critical barrier to stem cell therapy and allow for both autologous and allogeneic treatment
options in children and adults. It has been shown that the regenerative potential of adult CPCs can be
enhanced by ex vivo manipulation. Electrical stimulation (ES) is one treatment known to enhance cardiogenic
potential of various adult stem cells; however, the mechanism remains undetermined. Our published data show
that pediatric CPCs (isolated from patients between 1-5 years of age) respond to ES by initiating calcium
(Ca2+) oscillations making them an ideal population of cells for manipulation by ex vivo ES. Additionally, our
data indicate ES enhances both the function and the retention of pediatric CPCs in vivo. The objective of this
proposal is to examine the protective/regenerative capacity of pediatric CPCs in response to ES. We aim to
characterize the paracrine factors released by ES-treated pediatric CPCs and determine their effect on cardiac
cells, characterize the mechanism of enhanced adhesion/retention, and finally determine if ES enhances their
function in vivo. Successful completion of this project will provide mechanisms to enhance the therapeutic
efficacy of cardiac stem cells, provide autologous and allogeneic treatment options, and advance regenerative
medicine. This project also directly addresses a critical barrier in stem cell therapies for pediatric HF by
providing autologous and allogeneic treatments using pre-conditioned CPCs. Additionally, our preliminary data
suggest our findings may be applicable as a broader ther...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10094252
- **Project number:** 5R01HL150562-02
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Joshua Thomas Maxwell
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $390,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-02-10 → 2021-08-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10094252

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10094252, Electrical stimulation of human CPCs (5R01HL150562-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10094252. Licensed CC0.

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