Zhang Hongwei, Xian Lingling, Lin Zhiyi, Yang Chaozhe, Zhang Meng, Feng Wenlei, Peng Xinyu, Chen Xueling, Wu Xiangwei
Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical School, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430030, Hubei, China.
Mol Cell Biochem. 2014 Dec;397(1-2):235-43. doi: 10.1007/s11010-014-2191-3. Epub 2014 Sep 20.
Stem cells dwell at the "stem cell niche" to accomplish a series of biological processes. The composition of the niche should be determined because the insufficient understanding of this feature limits the development in the study of stem cells. We showed in our study on mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) that the MSCs first neighbored to CD31(+) cells, which proved to be endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), and formed a group of cell colony before they exerted their biological functions. It was further proved that EPCs have close interactions with MSCs and promoted the self-renewal of the MSCs in vitro and in vivo. Together with these achievements, we hypothesized that EPCs may be a possible biological component of the MSC stem cell niche and affect the biological processes of MSCs.
干细胞驻留在“干细胞生态位”以完成一系列生物学过程。由于对这一特性的认识不足限制了干细胞研究的发展，因此应确定生态位的组成。我们在对间充质干细胞（MSC）的研究中表明，MSC首先与CD31(+)细胞相邻，这些细胞被证明是内皮祖细胞（EPC），并且在发挥其生物学功能之前形成了一组细胞集落。进一步证明，EPC与MSC有密切的相互作用，并在体外和体内促进了MSC的自我更新。结合这些成果，我们推测EPC可能是MSC干细胞生态位的一种可能的生物学成分，并影响MSC的生物学过程。
