Figure 1.

Universal signaling pathways and cell-specific actuators interact in cardiac stem cells to induce given biological responses. The interaction of universal determinants (in red) and stage-specific actuators (in blue) in adult cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs) is schematically represented (A). Yellow boxes identify the signaling pathways so far recognized to participate in CPCs function. The association with CPC specific receptors has been found for some of the pathways, while for others no clear evidence of any interaction with cell-specific determinants has been given so far (indicated by question marks). The participation of well-known signaling pathways to given activities in adult cardiac progenitor cells is shown in (B). Please refer to the main text for the meaning of the abbreviations.