doi: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.108.184374
© 2008 American Heart Association, Inc.
Editorials |
Directing Myogenic Mesenchymal Stem Cell Differentiation
From the Department of Vascular Medicine (P.E.W., M.C.V.), University Medical Center Utrecht; and Department of Internal Medicine (P.E.W.), St. Antonius Hospital, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands.
Correspondence to Peter E. Westerweel, MD, PhD, Department of Vascular Medicine, G02.405, University Medical Center Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 100, 3584 CX Utrecht, The Netherlands. E-mail p.westerweel@umcutrecht.nl
See related article, pages 635–642
Key Words: Mesenchymal stem cells • stem cells • Smooth muscle differentiation • sphingosylphosphorylcholine • myocardin • MRTF
An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract. |
Vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) play an important role in the embryonic and postnatal development and remodeling of blood vessels. In mature vasculature, SMCs regulate the vascular tone and, thereby, the blood pressure and blood distribution. SMCs are also involved in pathological vascular conditions, such as atherosclerosis, hypertension, and intima hyperplasia. SMCs retain a high degree of plasticity after differentiation, and their structure and functional characteristics may be modulated in response to external stimuli.1 Understanding cardiovascular disease requires understanding myogenic differentiation. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent stem cells that can be induced to differentiate into SMCs but may also commit to adipocytic, cardiomyogenic, chondrogenic, endothelial, neuronal, or osteoblastic differentiation. MSCs provide an opportunity to study signaling involved in SMC lineage differentiation.2,3
MSCs can be obtained from various accessible sources such as bone marrow and adipose tissue and have a high proliferation capacity allowing rapid expansion ex vivo.3 This makes MSCs an attractive source for tissue engineering strategies, including SMCs generated from MSCs. SMCs may be used for the formation of contractile layers in, for example, tissue engineered urinary bladders and arterial grafts. In addition, direct cell transplantation using MSCs is under investigation for treating cardiovascular disease such as myocardial ischemia, in which injected MSCs have been shown to incorporate, adopt a SMC phenotype, and enhance neovascularization.4,5 A major challenge in using MSCs for tissue engineering or therapeutic cell transplantation is to direct their differentiation toward the desired lineage and to have the cells retain this phenotype. This further stresses
Related Article:
Circ. Res. 2008 103: 635-642.