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Cardiovascular Research Advance Access first published online on March 3, 2008
This version [Corrected Proof] published online on March 26, 2008
Cardiovascular Research, doi:10.1093/cvr/cvn059
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Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. © The Author 2008. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Contractile smooth muscle cells derived from hair-follicle stem cells

Jin Yu Liu1, Hao Fan Peng1 and Stelios T. Andreadis1,2,*

1 Bioengineering Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, 908 Furnas Hall, North Campus, Amherst, NY 14260, USA
2 Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA

* Corresponding author. Tel: +1 716 645 2911; fax: +1 716 645 3822. E-mail address: sandread{at}eng.buffalo.edu

Aims: We hypothesized that hair-follicle stem cells can differentiate toward smooth contractile muscle cells, providing an autologous cell source for cardiovascular tissue regeneration.

Methods and results: Smooth muscle progenitor cells (SMPCs) were obtained from ovine hair follicles using a tissue-specific promoter and fluorescence-activated cell sorting. Hair-follicle smooth muscle progenitor cells (HF-SMPCs) expressed several markers of vascular smooth muscle including {alpha}-actin, calponin, myosin heavy chain (MHC), caldesmon, smoothelin, and SM22. HF-SMPCs were highly proliferative and showed high clonogenic potential without any signs of chromosomal abnormalities as evidenced by karyotype analysis. HF-SMPCs compacted fibrin hydrogels to a similar extent as vascular smooth muscle cells from ovine umbilical veins (V-SMCs), indicating the development of the force-generating machinery. In addition, cylindrical tissue equivalents prepared with HF-SMPCs displayed significant contractility in response to vasoactive agonists including KCl and the thromboxane A2 mimetic U46619 [GenBank] , suggesting that these cells had developed receptor and non-receptor-mediated pathways of contractility. Finally, transforming growth factor-β1 promoted differentiation of HF-SMPCs toward a mature SMC phenotype as suggested by increased expression of MHC and enhanced matrix compaction.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that hair follicles may be an easily accessible, autologous, and rich source of functional SMPC for cardiovascular tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

KEYWORDS Stem cells; Hair follicle; Smooth muscle cells; Contractility; Cardiovascular tissue engineering; Cell therapy

Time for primary review: 32 days


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