Vascular Wall-resident Stem Cells Research Articles

A histological study of vascular wall resident stem cells in venous malformations.

Vascular wall resident stem cells (VW-SCs) play a key role in vascular formation and remodeling under both physiological and pathological situations. They not only serve as a reservoir to supply all types of vascular cells needed, but also regulate vascular homeostasis by paracrine effects. Venous malformations (VMs) are common congenital vascular malformations which are just characterized by the deficient quantity and abnormal function of vascular cells. However, the existence and role of VW-SCs in VMs is still unclear at present. In this study, the level and distribution of VW-SCs in 22 specimens of VMs were measured by immunochemistry, double-labeling immunofluorescence, and qPCR, followed by the Spearman rank correlation test. We found that both the protein and mRNA expression levels of CD34, vWF, VEGFR2, CD44, CD90, and CD105 were significantly downregulated in VMs compared with that in normal venules. VW-SCs were sporadically distributed or even absent within and outside the endothelium of VMs. The expression of the VW-SC-related markers was positively correlated with the density of both endothelial cells and perivascular cells. All those results and established evidence indicated that VW-SCs were more sporadically distributed with fewer amounts in VMs, which possibly contributing to the deficiency of vascular cells in VMs.

Cell Based Therapeutic Approach in Vascular Surgery: Application and Review.

Multipotent stem cells - such as mesenchymal stem/stromal cells and stem cells derived from different sources like vascular wall are intensely studied to try to rapidly translate their discovered features from bench to bedside. Vascular wall resident stem cells recruitment, differentiation, survival, proliferation, growth factor production, and signaling pathways transduced were analyzed. We studied biological properties of vascular resident stem cells and explored the relationship from several factors as Matrix Metalloproteinases (MMPs) and regulations of biological, translational and clinical features of these cells. In this review we described a translational and clinical approach to Adult Vascular Wall Resident Multipotent Vascular Stem Cells (VW-SCs) and reported their involvement in alternative clinical approach as cells based therapy in vascular disease like arterial aneurysms or peripheral arterial obstructive disease.

The contribution of resident vascular stem cells to arterial pathology.

Intimal accumulation of smooth muscle cells contributes to the development and progression of atherosclerotic lesions and restenosis following endovascular procedures. Arterial smooth muscle cells display heterogeneous phenotypes in both physiological and pathological conditions. In response to injury, dedifferentiated or synthetic smooth muscle cells proliferate and migrate from the tunica media into the intima. As a consequence, smooth muscle cells in vascular lesions show a prevalent dedifferentiated phenotype compared to the contractile appearance of normal media smooth muscle cells. The discovery of abundant stem antigen-expressing cells in vascular lesions also rarely detected in the tunica media of normal adult vessels stimulated a great scientific debate concerning the possibility that proliferating vascular wall-resident stem cells accumulate into the neointima and contribute to the progression of lesions. Although several experimental studies support this hypothesis, others researchers suggest a positive effect of stem cells on plaque stabilization. So, the real contribute of vascular wall-resident stem cells to pathological vascular remodelling needs further investigation. This review will examine the evidence and the contribution of vascular wall-resident stem cells to arterial pathobiology, in order to address future investigations as potential therapeutic target to prevent the progression of vascular diseases.

Vascular wall-resident stem cells.

New vessels in the adult have been considered to be formed not only by angiogenesis, but also by postnatal vasculogenesis via endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs). However, it is still a matter of debate as to what extent the EPCs contribute to new vessel formation in the adult. While the role of the circulating and bone marrow-derived EPCs has intensively been studied, the contribution of the vascular wall itself was neglected for a long time. Evidence published in the last few years strongly suggests the existence of different stem and progenitor cell types in the vascular wall. Particularly, the presence of EPCs and smooth muscle progenitor cells (SMPCs) in distinct zones of the vascular wall supports the hypothesis that not only BM- or C-EPCs, but also vascular wall-resident stem cells (VW-SCs) might contribute to new vessel formation and vascular wall morphogenesis. However, the differentiation potential of the VW-SCs, e.g. whether a VW-SC is able to give rise to a complete hierarchy of vascular progenitors still remains to be studied. This review will provide a survey about the VW-SCs and their potential impact in vascular biology.