Human mesenchymal stem cells support capillary‐like structures in a 3D model of in vitro angiogenesis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Adult human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) are a rare population of fibroblast‐like cells found within the bone marrow stroma. These cells have a high degree of plasticity and are able to differentiate into a wide variety of cell types. In the current study, we investigated whether hMSCs represent a novel vascular progenitor cell that may be involved in neovessel formation. hMSCs and endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) were cultured alone or together in Matrigel TM . Tube formation was visualized by fluorescence using an inverted microscope. In separate experiments, hMSCs were treated with TGF‐β1, (2.5ng/ml) or PDGF‐BB, (10ng/ml) for 4 days and stained for pericyte markers α‐smooth muscle actin (α‐SMA), desmin and PDGF receptor‐beta (PDGFR‐β). When cultured alone on Matrigel TM , EPCs and hMSCs formed tube‐like structures reminiscent of primitive vessels. Co‐culture of EPCs and hMSCs led to the formation of multicellular vascular tubes. hMSCs migrated towards and invested around EPC‐derived tubes demonstrating a cell‐cell interaction, likely mediated by paracrine effectors. Treatment of hMSCs with TGF‐β1 induced differentiation towards a pericyte phenotype, demonstrated by positive staining for α‐SMA and desmin. We conclude that hMSCs interact with EPCs to form primitive vessels. Moreover, treatment of hMSCs with TGF‐β1 promotes the expression of pericytes markers that support growing vessels. Therefore, hMSC is a vascular progenitor cell, which may serve as a cell substrate for efficient and sustainable therapeutic neovascularization. Supported by a Merck Frosst Pharmacology Fellowship to SRR Hall and CIHR grants to L Melo and C Ward .
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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 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 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 | 0.001 |
| 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".