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Smooth muscle diversity from human pluripotent cells

Nature Biotechnology volume 30, pages 152–154 (2012)Cite this article

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A method for differentiating human pluripotent stem cells into several subtypes of smooth muscle cell should aid the study and treatment of vascular disease.

Diseases of the blood vessel wall occur at specific sites in the vascular system even though most identified risk factors, such as hypercholesterolemia, hypertension and diabetes, are systemic1. A report in this issue promises to greatly facilitate research on the site-specific origins of vascular disease. Sinha and colleagues2 describe an in vitro strategy for generating large numbers of lineage-specific vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) using a chemically defined protocol. Their approach offers a solution to the difficulty of obtaining VSMC subtype progenitors from early embryos in sufficient quantities for study.

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Figure 1: Derivation of origin-specific vascular smooth muscle cells from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mark W. Majesky is in the Departments of Pediatrics and Pathology, Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine, Seattle Children's Research Institute and the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA,

    Mark W Majesky

  2. Christine L. Mummery is in the Department of Anatomy & Embryology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.,

    Christine L Mummery

Authors
  1. Mark W Majesky
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  2. Christine L Mummery
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Correspondence to Mark W Majesky or Christine L Mummery.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Majesky, M., Mummery, C. Smooth muscle diversity from human pluripotent cells. Nat Biotechnol 30, 152–154 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.2117

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