Atherosclerosis Research Unit, Institute of Clinical Medicine and Department of Cardiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Brendstrupgaardsvej, Skejby, Aarhus N, Denmark.
Cardiovasc Res. 2012 Aug 1;95(3):281-9. doi: 10.1093/cvr/cvs182. Epub 2012 May 31.
For more than a decade, a prevailing hypothesis in research related to arterial disease has been that circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) provide protection by their innate ability to replace dysfunctional or damaged endothelium. This paradigm has led to extensive investigation of EPCs in the hope of finding therapeutic targets to control their homing and differentiation. However, from the very beginning, the nomenclature and the phenotype of EPCs have been subject to controversy and there are currently no specific markers that can unambiguously identify these cells. Moreover, many of the initial observations that EPCs differentiate to endothelial cells in the course of arterial disease have been criticized for methodological problems. The present review discusses the contrasting experimental evidence as to the role of EPCs in contributing to relining of the endothelium and highlights some of the methodological pitfalls and terminological ambiguities that confuse the field.
十多年来，动脉疾病相关研究中的一个主流假说一直认为，循环内皮祖细胞（EPCs）通过其内在的替代功能失调或受损内皮的能力提供保护。这一范式促使人们对 EPCs 进行了广泛的研究，以期找到控制其归巢和分化的治疗靶点。然而，从一开始，EPCs 的命名和表型就一直存在争议，目前还没有能够明确识别这些细胞的特异性标志物。此外，许多最初观察到的 EPCs 在动脉疾病过程中分化为内皮细胞的现象，都因方法学问题而受到批评。本文综述了 EPCs 在促进内皮再内皮化方面的作用的对比实验证据，并强调了一些混淆该领域的方法学陷阱和术语模糊性。
