**5. Conclusions**

In conclusion, in a murine model of myocardial infarction in SCID mice, transplantation of huECFCs ameliorated myocardial function by attenuation of adverse post-MI remodeling, presumably through paracrine effects. Cardiac repair was enhanced by increasing myocardial neovascularization and the pool of Sca1<sup>+</sup> cardiac resident stem cells without significant differences in the cardioprotective effects of huECFCs derived from diabetic or nondiabetic patients. The use of huECFCs for treating ischemic heart disease warrants further investigation.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4409/9/3/588/s1, Figure S1: ECFC expression of proangiogenic transcription factors in vitro assessed by RT-PCR.

**Author Contributions:** M.-A.D. designed and performed experiments, analyzed data, and contributed to the writing of the manuscript; S.B., U.G., R.D., and I.O. performed experiments; B.C.H. contributed to design of research, data analysis, and interpretation and the writing of the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This work was funded by the FöFoLe program of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University [Reg.-Nr. 634].

**Acknowledgments:** We are grateful to Judith Arcifa for her excellent technical assistance.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
