title: Functional states of resident vascular stem cells and vascular remodeling.
abstract: Recent evidence indicates that different types of vascular stem cells (VSCs) reside within the mural layers of arteries and veins. The precise identities of these resident VSCs are still unclear; generally, postnatal vasculature contains multilineage stem cells and vascular cell lineage-specific progenitor/stem cells which may participate in both vascular repair and lesion formation. However, the underlying mechanism remains poorly understood. In this review, we summarize the potential molecular mechanisms, which may control the quiescence and activation of resident VSCs and highlight a notion that the differential states of resident VSCs are directly linked to vascular repair or lesion formation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, SC 29209, USA.
authors.forename: Desiree F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Leach
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, SC 29209, USA.
authors.forename: Mitzi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nagarkatti
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, SC 29209, USA.
authors.forename: Prakash
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nagarkatti
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, SC 29209, USA.
authors.forename: Taixing
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Cui
keywords: activation; quiescence; remodeling; vascular stem cell