Cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) limits survival after heart transplantation. CAV is caused by damage to the allograft endothelium, resulting in occlusive intimal lesions. Administration of ex vivo cultured early endothelial progenitor cells (eEPCs) enhances endothelial repair and inhibits intimal hyperplasia. However, engraftment rates of eEPCs remain low. We examined changes in eEPC adhesion molecule expression during ex vivo cultivation, and how these changes affect their ability to adhere.
Compared to their parent cell population (freshly isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells, PBMCs), eEPCs had decreased expression of integrins necessary to form firm adhesions with endothelial cells. Despite this eEPCs showed an enhanced ability to adhere under static conditions compared to PBMCs. However, under conditions of physiological flow, eEPC rolling adhesion was reduced compared to PBMCs. We hypothesize that low eEPC retention rates observed in vivo may be due to impaired eEPC rolling resulting from ex vivo culture.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/17215 |
| Date | 26 February 2009 |
| Creators | Prodger, Jessica |
| Contributors | Rao, Vivek |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1444627 bytes, application/pdf |
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