Differentiation Of Bone Marrow Stromal Cells To Vascular Cells In Vitro

Seeding cells is one of the three core technologies of cardiovascular tissue engineering. The ideal seeding cells should have the following characters: they are easy to be obtained, cultured and passaged for a long time without alteration of the biological characters, they also have little immunogenities and strong abilities to repair injuried tissues and so on. It was found that bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) fit the characters aforementioned and proved to be able to inductively differentiate into endothelial-like and smooth muscle-like cells. In the present study, the differentiation of MSCs (mesenchymal stem cells) from tibia and fibula of rat into smooth muscle cells (SMCs) and endothelial cells (ECs) were investigated. MSCs co-cultured with ECs could differentiate to SMCs with early smooth muscle markers, and become more mature under the condition of physiological shear stress. CXCR4 positive cells were isolated from the bone marrowPDGFR- P positive cells were identified. The endothelial progenitor cells were also isolated from the bone marrow. Differentiation and some biological properties of endothelial progenitor cells were studied as well. The results suggest BMSCs are ideal seeding cells for cardiovascular tissue engineering.