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Blood, 1 May 2008, Vol. 111, No. 9, pp. 4551-4558. Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on February 6, 2008; DOI 10.1182/blood-2007-10-118273. This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplement Table and Figures All Versions of this Article: blood-2007-10-118273v1 111/9/4551    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Rights and Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Google Scholar Articles by Au, P. Articles by Jain, R. K. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Au, P. Articles by Jain, R. K. Related Collections Hemostasis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology Social Bookmarking                   What's this?  Previous Article  |  Table of Contents  |  Next Article  HEMOSTASIS, THROMBOSIS, AND VASCULAR BIOLOGY Bone marrow–derived mesenchymal stem cells facilitate engineering of long-lasting functional vasculature Patrick Au1,2, Joshua Tam1,2, Dai Fukumura1, and Rakesh K. Jain1 1 Edwin L. Steele Laboratory, Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston; and 2 Harvard–Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Division of Health Sciences and Technology, MIT, Cambridge Vascular tissue engineering requires a ready source of endothelial cells and perivascular cells. Here, we evaluated human bone marrow–derived mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) for use as vascular progenitor cells in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. hMSCs expressed a panel of smooth muscle markers in vitro including the cardiac/smooth muscle–specific transcription coactivator, myocardin. Cell-cell contact between endothelial cells and hMSCs up-regulated the transcription of myocardin. hMSCs efficiently stabilized nascent blood vessels in vivo by functioning as perivascular precursor cells. The engineered blood vessels derived from human umbilical cord vein endothelial cells and hMSCs remained stable and functional for more than 130 days in vivo. On the other hand, we could not detect differentiation of hMSCs to endothelial cells in vitro, and hMSCs by themselves could not form conduit for blood flow in vivo. Similar to normal perivascular cells, hMSC-derived perivascular cells contracted in response to endothelin-1 in vivo. In conclusion, hMSCs are perivascular cell precursors and may serve as an attractive source of cells for use in vascular tissue engineering and for the study of perivascular cell differentiation. CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

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