Fig. 1.

Experimental protocol. Mice were subjected a 60-min coronary occlusion followed by 41 days of reperfusion. CSCs or vehicle were delivered at 48 h after reperfusion. Serial echocardiographic studies were performed at baseline (4 days prior to coronary occlusion), 2 days after CSC transplantation (4 days after reperfusion), and 35 days after CSC transplantation (37 days after reperfusion, and 4 days prior to euthanasia). To assess CSC proliferation, mice were given BrdU (33 mg/kg/day, using mini-osmotic pumps) throughout the 39-day follow-up period after CSC transplantation. At 39 days after CSC transplantation (41 days after reperfusion), mice underwent a hemodynamic study and were euthanized, after which the hearts were harvested for morphometric and histopathologic analyses