Tumor formation constitutes a major obstacle to the clinical application of embryonic stem cell-derived (ESC-derived) cells. In an attempt to find major extracellular signaling and intrinsic factors controlling tumorigenicity and therapeutic functionality of transplanted ESC-derived retinal progenitor cells (ESC-RPCs), we evaluated multiple kinds of ESC-RPCs in a mouse retinal degeneration mode...

Embryonic stem cell (ESC) self-renewal and pluripotency is maintained by an external signaling pathways and intrinsic regulatory networks involving ESC-specific transcriptional complexes (mainly formed by OCT3/4, Sox2 and Nanog proteins), the Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) and DNA methylation [1-8]. Among these, Nanog represents the more ESC specific factor and its repression correlates w...

Endothelial cells (EC) derived from embryonic stem cells (ESC) require additional functional characterization before they are used as a cell therapy in order to enhance their potential for engraftment and proliferation. We explore several physiologically relevant functions of ESC-derived EC (ESC-EC), such as its capacity to produce nitric oxide (NO), regulate permeability, activate and express ...

The maintenance of pluripotency and specification of cellular lineages during embryonic development are controlled by transcriptional regulatory networks, which coordinate specific sets of genes through both activation and repression. The transcriptional repressor RE1-silencing transcription factor (REST) plays important but distinct regulatory roles in embryonic (ESC) and neural (NSC) stem cel...

The transcriptional regulator CITED2 is essential for heart development. Here, we investigated the role of CITED2 in the specification of cardiac cell fate from mouse embryonic stem cells (ESC). The overexpression of CITED2 in undifferentiated ESC was sufficient to promote cardiac cell emergence upon differentiation. Conversely, the depletion of Cited2 at the onset of differentiation resulted i...

BACKGROUND Pluripotent stem cells represent one promising source for cellular cardiomyoplasty. In this study, we used cardiac magnetic resonance to examine the ability of highly enriched cardiomyocytes (CMs) derived from murine embryonic stem cells (ESC) to form grafts and improve contractile function of infarcted rat hearts. METHODS AND RESULTS Highly enriched ESC-CMs were obtained by induci...

Possessing the ability of self-renewal with immortalization and potential for differentiation into different cell types, stem cells, particularly embryonic stem cells (ESC), have attracted significant attention since their discovery. As ESC research has played an essential role in developing our understanding of the mechanisms underlying reproduction, development, and cell (de)differentiation, ...

OBJECTIVE We examined the effect of delivery modality on the survival, localization, and functional effects of exogenously administered embryonic stem cells (ESCs) or endothelial cells derived from them (ESC-ECs) in the ischemic hindlimb. METHODS AND RESULTS Murine ESCs or ESC-ECs were stably transduced with a construct for bioluminescence imaging (BLI) and fluorescent detection. In a syngene...