Fig. 1. Different sources and characteristics of the human pluripotent and adult stem cells for AMI cell therapy. Ex vivo differentiated cardiomyocytes from human PSCs for regenerating infarcted myocardium have shown. ESCs and iPSCs are the two main types of PSCs. Human ESCs directly isolate from blastocyst ICM, and human iPSCs may be directly generated from matured somatic cells through transfection of ESCs specific transcription factors. Human embryo umbilical cord is the primary source for obtaining UC-MSCs and UC-MNSCs. In adults, MSCs and MNSCs can be isolated from bone marrow and adipose tissue as enrichment niches. Also, C-kit⁺ CSCs and CPCs can be directly harvested from human myocardium. The cells can be characterized by the positive or negative expression of several markers and transcription factors. Abbreviations: CPCs: cardiosphere-derived stem cells, CSCs: cardiac stem cells, ICM: inner cell mass, ESCs: embryonic stem cells, iPSCs: induced pluripotent stem cells, MNSCs: mononuclear stem cells, MSCs: mesenchymal stem cells, UC-MNSCs: umbilical cord-derived mononuclear stem cells, and UC-MSCs: umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells.