title: Progenitor Cells for Arterial Repair: Incremental Advancements towards Therapeutic Reality.
abstract: Coronary revascularization remains the standard treatment for obstructive coronary artery disease and can be accomplished by either percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) or coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Considerable advances have rendered PCI the most common form of revascularization and improved clinical outcomes. However, numerous challenges to modern PCI remain, namely, in-stent restenosis and stent thrombosis, underscoring the importance of understanding the vessel wall response to injury to identify targets for intervention. Among recent promising discoveries, endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) have garnered considerable interest given an increasing appreciation of their role in vascular homeostasis and their ability to promote vascular repair after stent placement. Circulating EPC numbers have been inversely correlated with cardiovascular risk, while administration of EPCs in humans has demonstrated improved clinical outcomes. Despite these encouraging results, however, advancing EPCs as a therapeutic modality has been hampered by a fundamental roadblock: what constitutes an EPC? We review current definitions and sources of EPCs as well as the proposed mechanisms of EPC-mediated vascular repair. Additionally, we discuss the current state of EPCs as therapeutic agents, focusing on endogenous augmentation and transplantation.
authors.affiliation: CAPITAL Research Group, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada; Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Trevor
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Simard
authors.affiliation: CAPITAL Research Group, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada; Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Richard G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.affiliation: CAPITAL Research Group, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Pouya
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Motazedian
authors.affiliation: CAPITAL Research Group, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Di Santo
authors.affiliation: CAPITAL Research Group, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: F Daniel
authors.initials: FD
authors.lastname: Ramirez
authors.affiliation: CAPITAL Research Group, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Juan J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Russo
authors.affiliation: CAPITAL Research Group, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Alisha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Labinaz
authors.affiliation: CAPITAL Research Group, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Altayyeb
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yousef
authors.affiliation: CAPITAL Research Group, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Brijesh
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Anantharam
authors.affiliation: Interventional Cardiology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pourdjabbar
authors.affiliation: CAPITAL Research Group, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada; Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0906-1363
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hibbert