Gene expression profiles of endothelial progenitor cells by oligonucleotide microarray analysis

Among the many tissue stem or progenitor cells recently being unveiled, endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) have attracted particular attention, not only because of their cardinal role in vascular biology and embryology but also because of their potential use in the therapeutic development of a variety of postnatal diseases, including cardiovascular and peripheral vascular disorders and cancer. The aim of this study is to provide some basic and comprehensive information on gene expression of EPCs to characterize the cells in molecular terms. Here, we focus on EPCs derived from CD34-positive mononuclear cells of human umbilical cord blood. The EPCs were purified and expanded in culture and analyzed by a high-density oligonucleotide microarray and real-time RT-PCR analysis. We identified 169 up-regulated and 107 down-regulated genes in the EPCs compared with three differentiated endothelial cells of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC), human lung microvascular endothelial cells (LMEC) and human aortic endothelial cells (AoEC). It is expected that the obtained list include key genes which are critical for EPC function and survival and thus potential targets of EPC recognition in vivo and therapeutic modulation of vasculogenesis in cancer as well as other diseases, in which de novo vasculogenesis plays a crucial role. For instance, the list includes Syk and galectin-3, which encode protein tyrosine kinase and β-galactoside-binding protein, respectively, and are expressed higher in EPCs than the three control endothelial cells. In situ hybridization showed that the genes were expressed in isolated cells in the fetal liver at E11.5 and E14.5 of mouse development.