Developmental Biology Program, SKI Stem Cell Research Facility, Center for Stem Cell Biology, Sloan-Kettering Institute, New York, New York, USA.
Stem Cells Dev. 2012 Aug 10;21(12):2312-21. doi: 10.1089/scd.2011.0501. Epub 2012 Feb 21.
Endothelial cells line blood vessels and coordinate many aspects of vascular biology. More recent work has shown that endothelial cells provide a key niche in vivo for neural stem cells. In vitro, endothelial cells secrete a factor that expands neural stem cells while inhibiting their differentiation. Here, we show that a transformed mouse endothelial cell line (bEnd.3) maintains human pluripotent stem cells in an undifferentiated state. bEnd.3 cells have a practical advantage over mouse embryonic fibroblasts for pluripotent stem cell maintenance since they can be expanded in vitro and engineered to express genes of interest. We demonstrate this capability by producing fluorescent and drug-resistant feeder cells. Further, we show that bEnd.3 secretes an activity that maintains human embryonic stem cells without direct contact.
内皮细胞排列在血管内，协调血管生物学的许多方面。最近的研究表明，内皮细胞为体内神经干细胞提供了一个关键的生态位。在体外，内皮细胞分泌一种因子，既能扩增神经干细胞，又能抑制其分化。在这里，我们表明，一种转化的小鼠内皮细胞系（bEnd.3）能使人类多能干细胞保持未分化状态。bEnd.3 细胞在维持多能干细胞方面比小鼠胚胎成纤维细胞具有实际优势，因为它们可以在体外扩增，并被工程化表达感兴趣的基因。我们通过产生荧光和耐药饲养细胞来证明这一能力。此外，我们还表明，bEnd.3 分泌一种活性物质，在没有直接接触的情况下维持人类胚胎干细胞。
