Paracrine Hypothesis and Cardiac Repair

Last two decades of research has seen the emergence and progress of stem cells from a myth to reality and their expediency in the clinical perspective as an effective therapeutic modality. Despite immense progress and promising results from experimental animal studies and clinical trials, the provocative underlying mechanism of their functional efficacy has led to diverging opinions and indulging the researchers into a continuous discussion. With controversies clouding the potential of stem cells to adopt morpho functionally competent cardiac phenotype, paracrine activity of the transplanted stem cells has been put forth as an alternative mechanism associated with the beneficial outcome of cell therapy.