Clinical Application of Endothelial Progenitor Cell: Are We Ready?
The discovery of circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) opened up a new era of EPC-based therapies for cardiovascular diseases. While researchers are enthusiastic about applying EPCs to clinical therapy, progress has been substantially limited due to the lack of a thorough characterization and understanding of early and late outgrowth EPCs (also called endothelial colony-forming cell, ECFCs) biology. As a means of facilitating the understanding of how late EPCs can most effectively be applied to clinical therapeutics, this article reviews the recent progress covering 5 important issues: (1) The best passages of ex vivo-cultivated EPCs for cell therapy; (2) inflammatory activation of late EPCs: a real world consideration; (3) late EPC is not an endothelial cell: an issue of cell contamination; (4) ways to improve EPC function and differentiation; and (5) how to separate and delete smooth muscle progenitor cells (SPCs).


BACKGROUND
Cardiovascular disease; Cell therapy; Endothelial progenitor cell; Smooth muscle progenitor cell.
Heart Failure Center, Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung; Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Taoyuan;
Chao-Hung
CH
Wang
Division of Cardiology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital; Institute of Clinical Medicine and Cardiovascular Research Center, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Po-Hsun
PH
Huang
Division of Cardiology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital; Institute of Clinical Medicine and Cardiovascular Research Center, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Jaw-Wen
JW
Chen
Division of Cardiology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital; Institute of Clinical Medicine and Cardiovascular Research Center, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Shing-Jong
SJ
Lin
Heart Failure Center, Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung; Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Taoyuan;
Ming-Feng
MF
Lee
Heart Failure Center, Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung; Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Taoyuan;
Ning-I
NI
Yang
Heart Failure Center, Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung; Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Taoyuan;
Wen-Jin
WJ
Cherng