. Long-term functional improvement and gene expression changes after bone marrow-derived multipotent progenitor cell transplantation in myocardial infarction. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 298: H1348 -H1356, 2010. First published February 19, 2010 doi:10.1152/ajpheart.01100.2009The study examined the longterm outcome of cardiac stem cell transplantation in hearts with postinfarction left ventricular (LV) remodeling. Myocardial infarction (MI) was created by ligating the first and second diagonal branches of the left anterior descending coronary artery in miniature swines. Intramyocardial injections of 50 million LacZ-labeled bone marrowderived multipotent progenitor cells (MPC) were performed in the periscar region (Cell, n ϭ 7) immediately after MI, whereas, in control animals (Cont, n ϭ 7), saline was injected. Functional outcome was assessed monthly for 4 mo with MRI and 31 P-magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Engraftment was studied on histology, and gene chip (Affymetrix) array analysis was used to study differential expression of genes in the two groups. MPC treatment resulted in improvement of ejection fraction as early as 10 days after MI (Cell, 43.4 Ϯ 5.1% vs. Cont, 32.2 Ϯ 5.5%; P Ͻ 0.05). This improvement was seen each month and persisted to 4 mo (Cell, 51.2 Ϯ 4.8% vs. Cont, 35.7 Ϯ 5.0%; P Ͻ 0.05). PCr-to-ATP ratio (PCr/ATP) improved with MPC transplantation, which was most pronounced at high cardiac work states (subendocardial PCr/ATP was 1.70 Ϯ 0.10 vs. 1.34 Ϯ 0.14, P Ͻ 0.05). There was no significant difference in scar size (scar/LV area ء 100) at 10 days postinfarction. However, at 4 mo, there was a significant decrease in scar size in the Cell group (Cell, 4.6 Ϯ 1.0% vs. Cont, 8.6 Ϯ 2.4%; P Ͻ 0.05). No significant engraftment of MPC was observed. MPC transplantation was associated with a downregulation of mitochondrial oxidative enzymes and increased levels of myocyte enhancer factor 2a and zinc finger protein 91. In conclusion, MPC transplantation leads to long-term functional and bioenergetic improvement in a porcine model of postinfarction LV remodeling, despite no significant engraftment of stem cells in the heart. MPC transplantation reduces regional wall stresses and infarct size and mitigates the adverse effects of LV remodeling, as seen by a reduction in LV hypertrophy and LV dilatation, and is associated with differential expression of genes relating to metabolism and apoptosis.energetics; metabolism; heart failure; scar size STEM CELL TRANSPLANTATION has emerged as a potential therapy for limiting postinfarction left ventricular (LV) remodeling and the consequent development of congestive heart failure in both animal (1,13,15,33) and clinical (2, 3, 12, 24, 31) studies.Clinical studies have shown mixed results on LV function with stem cell therapy, with some showing benefit (3, 24, 31) and some no difference in LV ejection fraction (12,14). In the bone marrow transfer to enhance ST-elevation infarct regeneration study, the treated group showed significant short-term increase of LV eje...