Better understanding of the mechanisms regulating the proliferation of pre-existing cardiomyocyte (CM) should lead to better options for regenerating injured myocardium. The absence of a perfect research model to definitively identify newly formed mammalian CMs is lacking. However, methodologies are being developed to identify and enrich proliferative CMs. These methods take advantages of the different proliferative states of CMs during postnatal development, before and after injury in the neonatal heart. New approaches use CMs labeled in lineage tracing animals or single cell technique-based CM clusters. This review aims to provide a timely update on the characteristics of the proliferative CMs, including their structural, functional, genetic, epigenetic and metabolic characteristics versus non-proliferative CMs. A better understanding of the characteristics of proliferative CMs should lead to the mechanisms for inducing endogenous CMs to self-renew, which is a promising therapeutic strategy to treat cardiac diseases that cause CM death in humans.

更好地了解调节现有心肌细胞（CM）增殖的机制应该可以为受损心肌的再生提供更好的选择。目前还缺乏一个完美的研究模型来明确鉴定新形成的哺乳动物 CM。然而，正在开发识别和富集增殖性 CM 的方法。这些方法利用了新生儿心脏损伤前后出生后发育过程中 CM 的不同增殖状态。新方法使用谱系追踪动物中标记的 CM 或基于单细胞技术的 CM 簇。本综述旨在及时更新增殖性 CM 的特征，包括其与非增殖性 CM 相比的结构、功能、遗传、表观遗传和代谢特征。更好地了解增殖性 CM 的特征应该会导致诱导内源性 CM 自我更新的机制，这是治疗导致人类 CM 死亡的心脏病的一种有前途的治疗策略。