Preconditioning c-Kit-positive Human Cardiac Stem Cells with a Nitric Oxide Donor Enhances Cell Survival through Activation of Survival Signaling Pathways.

Cardiac stem cell therapy has shown very promising potential to repair the infarcted heart but is severely limited by the poor survival of donor cells. Nitric oxide (NO) has demonstrated cytoprotective properties in various cells, but its benefits are unknown specifically for human cardiac stem cells (hCSCs). Therefore, we investigated whether pretreatment of hCSCs with a widely used NO donor, diethylenetriamine nitric oxide adduct (DETA-NO), promotes cell survival.