Browsing by Author "Rautiainen, Swarna"

Endothelial dysfunction is a common characteristic of several diseases including diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease and stroke. Healthy endothelium ensures vascular homeostasis, regulation of blood flow and the exchange of oxygen and nutrients, as well as immune cell filtration to the surrounding tissues. In many cases, endothelial dysfunction results in ischemia in the surrounding tissues impairing cellular regeneration mechanisms, which can lead to tissue necrosis in the worst case. Therapeutic angiogenesis via stem cell transplantation aims to restore tissue blood flow and thus aid in tissue regeneration and restoration of a functioning tissue. Adipose derived stem/stromal cells (ASC) are a stem cell population with a multilineage differentiation ability. They have been shown to differentiate towards adipogenic, osteogenic, chondrogenic, myogenic and neurogenic lineages among others. Their easy obtainability from liposuction material and abundance in the adipose tissue makes them an especially practical and favorable cell option for stem cell research. In angiogenesis research, ASCs are commonly used in a co-culture with an endothelial cell (EC) type such as human umbilical vein endothelial cell. ASCs secrete extracellular vesicles (EV) that are small membrane bound vesicles with a diameter ranging from 40-1000 nm, and which have the ability to alter the behavior of target cells through their cargo. EV cargo consists of microRNAs, messenger-RNAs and proteins, and the EV cargo of ASCs has been shown to have proangiogenic effects. The aim of this work was to review what is currently known about ASC ability to promote angiogenesis through paracrine secretion and differentiation into endothelial cells or pericytes, interactions between ASCs and endothelial cells in the angiogenesis promoting process and the role of ASC extracellular vesicles in promoting angiogenesis. The methods for this work were database research of related articles using scientific databases and search engines, article categorization and reading, and finally manuscript production. It can be concluded from the current literature that a co-culture environment of ASCs and an endothelial cell type supports the formation of tube-like structures in vitro. Additional insulin like growth factor 1 in culture medium enhances the expression of angiogenesis-related growth factors in both cell types via PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. Further, the activation of platelet derived growth factor receptor β supports ASC ability to promote vascular network formation. On the contrary, the presence of ASC secreted activin A results in the inhibition of vascular network formation. ASCs can differentiate into endothelial cells particularly in three-dimensional culture conditions. In addition, fibroblast growth factor 2 and the activation of the AKT-pathway are crucial for endothelial differentiation. In addition, ASCs have the ability to differentiate into pericytes and assume a stabilizing role on the outside of the microvessels. Concerning ASC derived EVs and their cargo, miR-31, miR-125a and miR-126 have proangiogenic effects in vitro and in vivo. Proangiogenic miRNAs in ASC EV cargo are miR-181b-5p and the let7-family, out of which miR-181b-5p upregulates vascular endothelial growth factor and hypoxia-inducible factor 1α and let7-family influences tube formation ability of ECs. In vivo, ASC derived EVs support fat grafting, enhance wound healing both in healthy and diabetic environment, and provide cardioprotection. Therefore, ASC EVs show potential for therapeutic angiogenesis but currently there is a lack of clinical trials in EV research.