Submitted August 7, 2006
Accepted February 26, 2007
Endothelial potential of human embryonic stem cells
Shulamit Levenberg*, Janet Zoldan, Yaara Basevitch, and Robert Langer
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Biotechnology Interdisciplinary Unit, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT, Boston, MA, United States
* Corresponding author; email: shulamit{at}bm.technion.ac.il.
There has been a growing interest in using endothelial cells for therapeutic purposes. This interest has led to exploring the use of endothelial progenitor cells isolated from human embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are advantageous when compared with other endothelial cell origin, due to their high proliferation capability, pluripotency, and low immunogenity. However, there remain many challenges and obstacles to overcome before the vision of using embryonic endothelial progenitor cells in the clinic can be realized. Among these obstacles is the development of a productive method of isolating endothelial cells from human embryonic stem cells and elucidating their differentiation pathway. This review will focus on the endothelial potential of human embryonic stem cells that is described in current studies, with respect to the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells to endothelial cells, their isolation, and their characterization.
