Origin, prospective identification, and function of circulating endothelial colony forming cells in mouse and man.
Academic Article
Overview
abstract
Most circulating endothelial cells are apoptotic, but rare circulating endothelial colony forming cells (C-ECFCs, also known as blood outgrowth endothelial cells (BOECs)) with proliferative and vasculogenic activity can be cultured; the origin and naïve function of these C-ECFCs remains obscure. Herein, detailed lineage tracing reveals murine C-ECFCs emerge in the early postnatal period, display high vasculogenic potential, with enriched frequency of clonal proliferative cells compared to tissue-resident ECFCs, and are not committed to or derived from the bone marrow hematopoietic system but from tissue-resident ECFCs. In human subjects, C-ECFCs are present in the CD34bright cord blood mononuclear subset, possess proliferative potential and in vivo vasculogenic function in a naïve or cultured state, and display a single cell transcriptome sharing some umbilical venous endothelial cell features like, higher Protein C Receptor and extracellular matrix gene expression. This study provides an advance for the field by identifying the origin, naïve function, and antigens to prospectively isolate C-ECFCs for translational studies.
