Endothelial Colony-Forming Cells Derived From Pregnancies Complicated by Intrauterine Growth Restriction Are Fewer and Have Reduced Vasculogenic Capacity
Bibliographic record
Abstract
CONTEXT: Endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFCs) are the only putative endothelial progenitor cells capable of vasculogenesis, and their dysfunction may represent a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is a pregnancy-related disorder associated with long-term cardiovascular risk. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to determine whether ECFCs derived from pregnancies complicated by IUGR exhibit altered vasculogenic potential. DESIGN AND SETTING: This was a prospective cohort study; patients were recruited at St. Mary's Hospital, Manchester, United Kingdom. PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-three women with normal pregnancies and 13 women with IUGR-complicated pregnancies at gestational ages above 37 weeks were included. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Vasculogenic capacity of rigorously characterized ECFCs was investigated in vivo by measuring blood vessel formation in collagen/fibronectin gels implanted in mice; proliferative, migratory, and chemotactic abilities were assessed in cell culture. Placental uptake of fetal ECFCs, assessed by differences in arterial and venous cord blood content, was determined by flow cytometry. RESULTS: In vivo, IUGR ECFCs formed fewer blood vessels (P < .001) and capillaries (P = .001) compared with normal pregnancy-derived ECFCs. In culture conditions, IUGR ECFCs had reduced proliferation (P = .01) and migration (P = .007) and diminished chemotactic abilities to stromal cell-derived factor 1 (P = .007) coupled with reduced hypoxia-induced matrix metalloproteinase-2 release (P = .02). Finally, in IUGR pregnancies, the number of ECFCs was lower in arterial cord blood (P = .002) and placental uptake of cells was reduced (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: ECFCs derived from IUGR cord blood are rarefied and dysfunctional, resulting in diminished vasculogenic potential; this could be a cause of placental dysfunction in IUGR, with long-term postnatal implications for cardiovascular function in offspring.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".