Abstract: Heart disease is one of the top ten fatal diseases, which threats human health seriously. However, the most useful therapy for heart disease is palliative care. So, we need to search new treatments for heart disease. Recent years, more and more researches are focus on the role of p53 in heart disease. p53, a kind of transcription factor, plays an important role during the occurrence, development and treatment of heart disease via anti-angiogenesis, pro-programmed cell death, autophagy regulation, cell cycle arrest regulation and metabolism regulation. p53 can also promote the differentiation of stem cell and the maturation of cardiomyocytes derived from stem cells in vitro, which can help the stem cells to treat heart disease. Therefore, p53 may become a new target for the treatment of heart diseases in the future. In this paper, the effect of p53 in the occurrence, development and treatment of heart diseases was reviewed.

Key words: p53, 　Heart disease, 　Stem cell