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Previously, cardiac c-kit<jats:sup>+<\/jats:sup>cells were reported to be CSCs with a potential to become myocardial, endothelial and smooth muscle cells<jats:italic>in vitro<\/jats:italic>and after cardiac injury. Here we provide further insights into the nature of cardiac c-kit<jats:sup>+<\/jats:sup>cells. By targeting the<jats:italic>c-kit<\/jats:italic>locus with multiple reporter genes in mice, we find that<jats:italic>c-kit<\/jats:italic>expression rarely co-localizes with the expression of the cardiac progenitor and myogenic marker<jats:italic>Nkx2.5<\/jats:italic>, or that of the myocardial marker, cardiac<jats:italic>troponin T (cTnT)<\/jats:italic>. Instead, c-kit predominantly labels a cardiac endothelial cell population in developing and adult hearts. After acute cardiac injury, c-kit<jats:sup>+<\/jats:sup>cells retain their endothelial identity and do not become myogenic progenitors or cardiomyocytes. Thus, our work strongly suggests that c-kit<jats:sup>+<\/jats:sup>cells in the murine heart are endothelial cells and not CSCs.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1038\/ncomms9701","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2015,10,30]],"date-time":"2015-10-30T09:51:00Z","timestamp":1446198660000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":306,"title":["Resident c-kit+ cells in the heart are not cardiac stem cells"],"prefix":"10.1038","volume":"6","author":[{"given":"Nishat","family":"Sultana","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lu","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jianyun","family":"Yan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jiqiu","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Weibin","family":"Cai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shegufta","family":"Razzaque","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Dongtak","family":"Jeong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wei","family":"Sheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Lei","family":"Bu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mingjiang","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Guo-Ying","family":"Huang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Roger J.","family":"Hajjar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Bin","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Anne","family":"Moon","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Chen-Leng","family":"Cai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2015,10,30]]},"reference":[{"key":"BFncomms9701_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"30","DOI":"10.1038\/nrcardio.2010.165","volume":"8","author":"AL Bui","year":"2011","unstructured":"Bui, A. 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