Exp Mol Med.  2007 Oct;39(5):653-662.

Cardiac side population cells exhibit endothelial differentiation potential

• Yoon J
• Choi SC
• Park CY
• Shim WJ
• Lim DS

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that side population (SP) cells, isolated from adult myocardium, represent a distinct cardiac progenitor cell population that exhibits functional cardiomyogenic differentiation. However, information on the intrinsic characteristics and endothelial potential, of cardiac SP cells, is limited. The present study was designed to investigate whether cardiac SP cells exhibit endothelial differentiation potential. The cardiac SP cells more highly expressed the early cardiac transcription factors as well as endothelial cell markers compared to the bone marrow-SP cells. After treatment with VEGF, for 28 days, cardiac SP cells were able to differentiate into endothelial cells expressing von Willebrand factor as determined by immunocytochemistry. Furthermore, expression of endothelial cell markers increased several-fold in VEGF-treated cardiac SP cells compared to the control group when assessed by real-time PCR. We also confirmed that cardiac SP cells provided a significantly augmented ratio of ischemic/normal blood flow, in the cardiac SP cell-transplanted group compared with saline-treated controls on postoperative days 7, 14, 21 and 28, in a murine model. These results show that cardiac SP cells may contribute to regeneration of injured heart tissues partly by transdifferentiation into angiogenic lineages.

Keyword

bone marrow; cell differentiation; cell transplantation; heart; infarction; stem cells

MeSH Terms

Animals
Base Sequence
Bone Marrow Cells/cytology/drug effects
Cell Differentiation/drug effects
Cell Separation
Colony-Forming Units Assay
DNA Primers/genetics
Endothelial Cells/*cytology/drug effects/metabolism/transplantation
Mice
Mice, Inbred BALB C
Myocardium/*cytology/metabolism
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A/pharmacology