“…Similarly, the cytoprotective effect of HPC was demonstrated in a number of in vivo studies using clinically relevant ischaemic models (Table 2). In these studies, ex vivo HPC rendered stem and progenitor cells more resilient to cell death when transplanted into the infarcted myocardium (He et al, 2009;Hu et al, 2008;Tang et al, 2009;Uemura et al, 2006), ischaemic limb (Akita et al, 2003;Kubo et al, 2008;Li et al, 2002;Rosova et al, 2008) or ischaemic brain (Theus et al, 2008), and this finding was significantly correlated with improved functional recovery of the ischaemic tissues. For instance, transplantation of hypoxic preconditioned mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into the ischaemic myocardium showed enhanced therapeutic benefits in terms of infarct size reduction, increased angiogenesis, improved ventricular function and less adverse cardiac remodelling .…”