Journal of Cell Science 115, e1003-e1003 (2002)
© 2002 The Company of Biologists Limited
Genetic selection of endothelial cells from stem cells
Endothelial cell transplantation has immense therapeutic potential. Not
only could it improve tissue grafting after injury, it could also be used to
treat patients with vascular defects, supplying circulating endothelial
progenitor cells (EPCs) for formation of new blood vessels. Unfortunately,
isolation and expansion of EPCs ex vivo is a slow process; alternative methods
that allow generation of large numbers of EPCs would be a huge asset. Gilles
Pagès and co-workers now present just such a method (see
p. 2075). They have developed
a genetic approach for selecting endothelial cells from differentiating
embryonic stem (ES) cells. The authors established ES cells expressing a
puromycin-resistance gene under the control of the endothelium-specific
Tie-1 promoter — having shown that it drives
endothelium-specific expression of a GFP reporter. Pagès and co-workers
show that, after expansion, differentiation and puromycin selection, the
resulting cells express characteristic endothelial markers, such as
VE-cadherin and ICAM-2. Moreover, they find that these cells can participate
in neovascularization in vivo, concluding that their technique has potential
for pro-angiogenic therapy.
Related articles in JCS:
- Endothelial cells genetically selected from differentiating mouse embryonic stem cells incorporate at sites of neovascularization in vivo
- Sandrine Marchetti, Clotilde Gimond, Kristiina Iljin, Christine Bourcier, Kari Alitalo, Jacques Pouysségur, and Gilles Pagès
JCS 2002 115: 2075-2085.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
