Abstract 18796: Characterization of Endothelial Colony-forming Cells Bioactivity in Young Adults Born Extremely Preterm Versus Term
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: Among subtypes of endothelial progenitor cells, endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFC) display high proliferative and angiogenic capacity in vitro and are considered biomarkers of angiogenic/regenerative capacity. Cord blood ECFC from preterm born (PT) infants have impaired bioactivity, especially in those who develop prematurity-related complications such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Whether ECFC dysfunction persists in PT beyond the neonatal period is not known. Objective: Our aim was to assess ECFC bioactivity (in vitro growth, angiogenic capacity) in extremely PT vs. term (T) born young adults. Methods: ECFC were obtained from peripheral blood from 19 young adults (21-28 years old) born extremely PT (<29 weeks gestation) and 19 T (≥37 weeks, paired by gender, age and socioeconomic status). Mononuclear cells (PBMC) were separated by density gradient and plated (5x10(6) cells/flask) to allow ECFC colony formation. ECFC were cultured to assess cell phenotype (CD45-/CD34+/CD31+/KDR+), in vitro proliferation rate by modified thymidine analogue EdU incorporation, and tubular formation in Matrigel. Results: ECFC colonies were obtained from 9 PT (48%) and 12 T (63%). The frequency distribution of the number of days to first colony formation was significantly different in PT vs. T, with higher frequency of late (> 15 days) and absence of any colony formation in PT (p=0.033). In PT, days to form 1st ECFC colony inversely correlated with ECFC proliferation rate (r=-0.85, p<0.001), and angiogenic capacity shown as number of tubes (r=-0.72, p=0.037) and branches (r=-0.68, p=0.043) formed in Matrigel, whereas in T these correlations were not significant with similar ECFC function at any time of colony formation. In PT, tubular formation negatively correlated with neonatal length of hospital stay (r=-0.72, p=0.03), a proxy of prematurity-related complications. Conclusions: Time to first ECFC colony formation, proliferation rate and in vitro tubular formation are significantly altered in PT vs. T young adults. Overall data suggests that extremely PT born young adults display impaired ECFC bioactivity, which may contribute to the development of cardiovascular diseases associated with impaired angiogenesis in this population.
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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 | 0.001 |
| 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".