Endogenous resident c-Kit cardiac stem cells increase in mice with an exercise-induced, physiologically hypertrophied heart

• The focus was on the involvement of stem cells in the physiological cardiac hypertrophy induced by exercise training.
• The number of c-Kit+Lin− cardiac stem cells increases during the physiological cardiac remodeling.
• The number of Sca-1+Lin− cardiac stem cells and cardiac muscle-derived stromal cells is not modified in the process.
• Extracardiac stem cells are minimally recruited to the heart.

Physical activity evokes well-known adaptations in the cardiovascular system. Although exercise training induces cardiac remodeling, whether multipotent stem cells play a functional role in the hypertrophic process remains unknown. To evaluate this possibility, C57BL/6 mice were subjected to swimming training aimed at achieving cardiac hypertrophy, which was morphologically and electrocardiographically characterized. Subsequently, c-Kit+Lin− and Sca-1+Lin− cardiac stem cells (CSCs) were quantified using flow cytometry while cardiac muscle-derived stromal cells (CMSCs, also known as cardiac-derived mesenchymal stem cells) were assessed using in vitro colony-forming unit fibroblast assay (CFU-F). Only the number of c-Kit+Lin− cells increased in the hypertrophied heart. To investigate a possible extracardiac origin of these cells, a parabiotic eGFP transgenic/wild-type mouse model was used. The parabiotic pairs were subjected to swimming, and the wild-type heart in particular was tested for eGFP+ stem cells. The results revealed a negligible number of extracardiac stem cells in the heart, allowing us to infer a cardiac origin for the increased amount of detected c-Kit+ cells. In conclusion, the number of resident Sca-1+Lin− cells and CMSCs was not changed, whereas the number of c-Kit+Lin− cells was increased during physiological cardiac hypertrophy. These c-Kit+Lin− CSCs may contribute to the physiological cardiac remodeling that result from exercise training.