The atrial appendage as a suitable source to generate cardiac-derived adherent proliferating cells for regenerative cell-based therapies.

Cardiac-derived adherent proliferating (CardAP) cells obtained from endomyocardial biopsies (EMBs) with known anti-fibrotic and pro-angiogenic properties are good candidates for the autologous therapy of end-stage cardiac diseases such as dilated cardiomyopathy. However, due to the limited number of CardAP cells that can be obtained from EMBs, our aim is to isolate cells with similar properties from other regions of the heart with comparable tissue architecture. Here, we introduce the atrial appendage as a candidate region.