Updated perspectives on vascular cell specification and pluripotent stem cell-derived vascular organoids for studying vasculopathies

Cardiovasc Res. 2022 Jan 7;118(1):97-114. doi: 10.1093/cvr/cvaa313.

Abstract

Vasculopathy is a pathological process occurring in the blood vessel wall, which could affect the haemostasis and physiological functions of all the vital tissues/organs and is one of the main underlying causes for a variety of human diseases including cardiovascular diseases. Current pharmacological interventions aiming to either delay or stop progression of vasculopathies are suboptimal, thus searching novel, targeted, risk-reducing therapeutic agents, or vascular grafts with full regenerative potential for patients with vascular abnormalities are urgently needed. Since first reported, pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), particularly human-induced PSCs, have open new avenue in all research disciplines including cardiovascular regenerative medicine and disease remodelling. Assisting with recent technological breakthroughs in tissue engineering, in vitro construction of tissue organoid made a tremendous stride in the past decade. In this review, we provide an update of the main signal pathways involved in vascular cell differentiation from human PSCs and an extensive overview of PSC-derived tissue organoids, highlighting the most recent discoveries in the field of blood vessel organoids as well as vascularization of other complex tissue organoids, with the aim of discussing the key cellular and molecular players in generating vascular organoids.

Keywords: Blood vessel; Embryonic stem cell; Induced pluripotent stem cell; Organoid vascularization; Pluripotent stem cell; Tissue-engineered vascular graft; Vascular disease; Vascular endothelial cell; Vascular organoid; Vascular smooth muscle cell; Vasculopathy.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Blood Vessels / metabolism*
  • Blood Vessels / pathology
  • Blood Vessels / physiopathology
  • Cell Culture Techniques
  • Cell Differentiation*
  • Cell Lineage*
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Endothelial Cells / metabolism
  • Endothelial Cells / pathology
  • Humans
  • Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells / metabolism*
  • Muscle, Smooth, Vascular / metabolism
  • Muscle, Smooth, Vascular / pathology
  • Muscle, Smooth, Vascular / physiopathology
  • Myocytes, Smooth Muscle / metabolism
  • Myocytes, Smooth Muscle / pathology
  • Neovascularization, Pathologic
  • Neovascularization, Physiologic*
  • Organoids
  • Phenotype
  • Signal Transduction
  • Vascular Diseases / metabolism*
  • Vascular Diseases / pathology
  • Vascular Diseases / physiopathology