Abstract: The present invention relates to uses of granulocyte colony stimulating factor (GCSF) or fragment thereof for the preparation of a pharmaceutical composition for treating organ dysfunction caused by ischemia, whereby the pharmaceutical composition is to be administered to a patient who is subjected to a surgical or interventional procedure in order to improve organ function, to improve organ function, to improve blood flow and/or to induce revascularization. Furthermore, the present invention relates to methods of treating organ dysfunction caused by ischemia comprising administering a therapeutically effective amount of G-CSF or fragment thereof to a patient who is subjected to a surgical or interventional procedure in order to improve organ function, to improve organ function, to improve blood flow and/or to induce revascularization.

Abstract: The invention concerns an in vitro test procedure for the detection of chemically induced effects on embryonic development and for differentiation for the purpose of embryotoxicity/teratogenicity screening based on differentiated pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells from mice and rats using embryonic germ (EG) cells obtained from primoridial germ cells. The proposed test procedure is characterised in that stable transgenic ES or EG cell clones containing tissue-specific promoters and reporter genes are selected, differentiation-dependent expression of tissue-specific genes is carried out following differentiation of ES cells in the presence of embryotoxic substances acting at specific times into different germination path derivatives; this is followed by detection of chemically induced activation, repression or modulation of tissue-specific genes which regulate embryonic development.

Abstract: The invention concerns embryonal (cardiomyocytary and cardiomyoblastary) cardiac muscle cells, their preparation and their use, in particular for cell-mediated gene transplant. The areas of application of the invention are medicine and genetic engineering. The embryonal cardiac muscle cells according to the invention contain two gene constructs comprising: a) a regulatory, 1.2-kb long DNA sequence of the ventricle-specific myosin light-chain-2 (MLC-2v) promoter, the selectable marker gene .beta.-galactosidase in fusion with the reporter gene neomycin; and b) a regulatory DNA sequence of the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase promoter and the selectable marker gene hygromycin, and optionally immortalizing genes and/or optionally genes inactivated by homologous recombination and/or optionally one or a plurality of therapeutic genes.