内皮祖细胞及其在组织工程中的应用

Endothelial Progenitor Cells and Their Application in Tissue Engineering

目前,组织工程化血管的构建和工程化组织器官的血管化因内皮种子细胞的扩增能力不足和生物活性不强而受到限制。内皮祖细胞(EPC)是内皮细胞的前体细胞。出生后,EPC主要存在于骨髓,可向外周血液缓慢释放,参与机体缺血组织的血管重建和损伤血管的重新内皮化。现对EPC的来源、分布、表型特征、动员、分化、归巢、分离、培养与鉴定等生物学特性和EPC在组织工程中的应用进行了全面的综述,并指出目前存在的问题和研究方向。

Vascular tissue engineering and neovascularization of engineering tissue grafts have come under limitation from poor proliferating ability and activity of endothelial cells. Endothelial progenitor cell （EPC） is a kind of directional cell that is able to differentiate into mature endothelial cell. Postnatally, EPCs are mainly in bone marrow, which can be released to peripheral blood and contribute to repair of injured vascular endothelium and neovascularization of ischemic tissue. In this paper, the biological specialities of EPC, such as its origin, distributing, characterization, mobilization, differentiation, homing, isolation, culture and identification, and it＇s application in tissue engineering is reviewed, as well as existed problems and research direction at present in this field are pointed out.