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(Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. 2004;24:1977.)
© 2004 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

Endothelial Progenitor Cells at Work

Not Mature Yet, but Already Stress-Resistant

Lothar Rössig; Carmen Urbich; Stefanie Dimmeler

From Molecular Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine IV, University of Frankfurt, Germany.

Correspondence to Stefanie Dimmeler, PhD, Molecular Cardiology, Dept. of Internal Medicine IV, University of Frankfurt, Theodor Stern-Kai 7, 60590 Frankfurt, Germany. E-mail dimmeler@em.uni-frankfurt.de

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

Tissue replacement in the adult organism by cell-specific differentiation of autologous stem/progenitor cells has evolved as a fascinating concept in stem cell biology. After organ damage, bone marrow–derived circulating or tissue-resident progenitor cells are thought to differentiate toward the type of cell needed for repair. According to this concept, maturation of these cells would be expected to result at best in a perfect morphological and functional replacement of the injured tissue. However, in this issue of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, He et al show that endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are more than just as capable of in vitro angiogenic tube formation as mature endothelial cells (ECs), but are truly advantageous when it comes to stress tolerance.¹

See page 2021

EPCs were originally characterized as cells that are mobilized from the bone marrow and circulate in the peripheral blood and express certain surface membrane markers including the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGF-R₂) KDR and the hematopoietic progenitor cell markers CD34 and CD133.^2–4 During ex vivo expansion, these cells develop morphological and functional characteristics typical for ECs, including formation of vascular-like structures in matrigel and other in vitro angiogenesis assays. Most importantly, however, transplanted EPCs exhibit an extraordinary potent in vivo capacity to improve the neovascularization of ischemic tissue in the adult organism.⁵ In this regard, EPCs were shown to be more effective than mature ECs in animal models of hind limb ischemia,^6–8 although mature ECs are well established to exert a potent in vitro angiogenic activity. Thus, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Tongrong He, Timothy E. Peterson, Ekhson L. Holmuhamedov, Andre Terzic, Noel M. Caplice, Larry W. Oberley, and Zvonimir S. Katusic
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