Stem cells cardiac differentiation in 3D systems.

Cardiac regeneration requires a complex cascade of events. Stem cell therapy and tissue engineering are newly emerging tools with promising potential for recover or replace of damaged cardiac tissue. There are many factors, most of them still no clarified, that limit the effectiveness of these treatments and their translation to the clinic. Cells should graft, survive and functionally integrate to the target organ in order to have a chance to restore its function. As in original tissues, a complex and well defined set of signals, many of them coming from the extracellular matrix, is required for normal cell physiology. Biomaterials science gives us important tools to build this extracellular matrix. Functionalized 3D systems can provide the correct environment and act as a delivery system for genes or gene products, guiding the therapeutic cells to the functional phenotype.