Project name: Homo sapiens

Description: Therapeutic neo-vasculogenesis in vivo can be achieved by the co-transplantation of human endothelial colony-forming progenitor cells (ECFCs) with mesenchymal stem/progenitor cells (MSPCs).The underlying mechanism is not completely understood thus hampering the development of novel stem cell therapies.We hypothesized that proteomic profiling could be used to retrieve the in vivo signaling signature during the initial phase of human neo-vasculogenesis. ECFCs and MSPCs were therefore either transplanted alone or co-transplanted subcutaneously into immune deficient mice. Early cell signaling, occurring within the first 24 hours in vivo, was analyzed using antibody microarray proteomic profiling.Vessel formation and persistence were verified in parallel transplants for up to 24 weeks. Proteomic analysis revealed significant alteration of regulatory components including caspases, calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase, DNA protein kinase,human ErbB2 receptor-tyrosine kinase as well as mitogen-activated protein kinases.Therapeutic candidate caspase-4 was selected from array results for targeting vascular network formation in vitro as well as modulating therapeutic vasculogenesis in vivo. As a proof-of-principle, caspase-4 and general caspase-blocking led to diminished endothelial network formation in vitro and significantly decreased vasculogenesis in vivo. Proteomic profiling ex vivo thus unraveled a signaling signature which can be targeted to modulate neo-vasculogenesis in vivo.Overall design: A number of four microarrays (with two fields on each array) were used with the possibility to load and analyze two samples side by side at the same time.Therefore, a total number of eight samples were loaded and analyzed in this study. All microarrays contained the pooled protein content (N=3) of MSPC+ECFC in vivo plugs in one field and the other field was filled with the pooled protein extraction (N=3) of MSPC only plugs in vivo (Array#1), pooled protein extraction (N=3) of ECFC only plugs in vivo (Array#2), cell-free Matrix (Matrigel, Milipore) as the control (Array#3) and pooled protein extraction (N=3) of the MSPC+ECFC plugs in vitro (Array#4). Arrays#1,2 and 4 were used as reference samples and cell-free Matrix (Array#3) was used as the control.

Data type: Proteome

Sample scope: Multiisolate

Relevance: Medical

Last updated: 2013-04-09