Idermfiration and Charactetizaiion of Bone Marrow-derived Vascular Progenitor Cells

血管平滑肌细胞的大量堆积在血管疾病的发病机制中起主要作用。人们一直认为，来源于邻近中层的平滑肌细胞迁移、增殖和合成细胞外基质。尽管针对中膜平滑肌细胞的迁移和增殖已经投入了大量的努力，但还没有建立有效的预防闭塞性血管重塑的治疗方法。最近，我们报道了在血管成形术后再狭窄、移植物血管病变和高脂血症诱导的动脉粥样硬化模型中，骨髓细胞在血管疾病的发病机制中起着重要作用。有研究表明，骨髓细胞可能具有向血管前体细胞分化的潜能，这些前体细胞位于受损的血管中，并分化为平滑肌细胞或内皮细胞，从而促进血管修复、重塑和病变的形成。我们的发现可能为开发新的血管疾病治疗策略提供基础，靶向动员、归巢、分化和增殖循环中的血管前体细胞。推测的血管前体细胞将被用来生成生物人工动脉，以治疗严重的动脉粥样硬化患者。

Exuberant accumulation of smooth muscle cells plays a principal role in the pathogenesis of vascular diseases. It has been assumed that smooth muscle cells derived from the adjacent medial layer migrate, proliferate and synthesize extra cellular matrix. Although much effort has been devoted, targeting migration and proliferation of medial smooth muscle cells, no effective therapy to prevent occlusive vascular remodeling has been established. Recently, we reported that bone marrow cells substantially contribute to the pathogenesis of vascular diseases, in models of post-angioplasty restenosis, graft vasculopathy and hyperlipidemia-induced atherosclerosis. It was suggested that bone marrow cells may have the potential to give rise to vascular progenitor cells that home in the damaged vessels and differentiate into smooth muscle cells or endothelial cells, thereby contributing to vascular repair, remodeling, and lesion formation. Our findings may provide the basis for the development of new therapeutic strategies for vascular diseases, targeting mobilization, homing, differentiation and proliferation of circulating vascular progenitor cells. Putative vascular progenitor cells would be used to generate biological artificial arteries to treat patients with severe atherosclerosis.