A team of US researchers has discovered the "home" of stem cells in the heart, lending credence to the idea that the heart has the capacity to repair itself.
The finding raises the possibility that these cardiac stem cells could one day be manipulated to rebuild tissues damaged by heart disease - still the leading cause of death in the US and UK, Newscientist.com reported.
Because fully developed heart cells do not divide, experts have believed the organ was unable to regenerate after injury.
But researchers at Piero Anversa's laboratory at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, US discovered stem cells in the hearts of mice and subsequently in humans.
However, they still did not know whether these stem cells actually resided in the heart or had merely migrated there from another tissue, such as bone marrow.