Enhancing limb salvage by non-mobilized peripheral blood angiogenic cell precursors therapy in patients with critical limb ischemia.

Background: Stem cell therapy has been proposed to enhance the salvage of critically ischemic limbs.

Objective: Assess the efficacy and safety of the implantation of non-mobilized peripheral blood angiogenic cell precursors (NMPB-ACPs) in patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI) who were poor candidates for standard revascularization treatment options.

Material And Method: Six patients with CLI due to the infrapopliteal artery occlusive disease were included in the present study.

Human angiogenic cell precursors restore function in the infarcted rat heart: a comparison of cell delivery routes.

Background: We recently isolated angiogenic cell precursors (ACPs) from human blood, which can induce angiogenesis in vitro.

Aims: In the present study, we used a nude rat model of ischaemic cardiomyopathy to compare the efficacy of intramyocardial and intracoronary ACP implantation, and to evaluate effects on cardiac function, scar size and angiogenesis.

Methods And Results: Adult nude rats underwent coronary artery ligation.

Isolation of an adult blood-derived progenitor cell population capable of differentiation into angiogenic, myocardial and neural lineages.

Blood-derived adult stem cells were previously considered impractical for therapeutic use because of their small numbers. This report describes the isolation of a novel human cell population derived from the peripheral blood, termed synergetic cell population (SCP), and defined by the expression of CD31Bright, CD34+, CD45-/Dim and CD34Bright, but not lineage-specific features. The SCP was capable of differentiating into a variety of cell lineages upon exposure to defined culture conditions.

Localization of protein kinase A and vitronectin in resting platelets and their translocation onto fibrin fibers during clot formation.

Physiological stimulation of platelets with thrombin brings about the release of protein kinase A (PKA) into the plasma. In human blood, this kinase singles out and phosphorylates vitronectin (Vn), a multifunctional regulatory protein, which was proposed to play an important role in the control of fibrinolysis. Here we present immuno-cytochemical evidence to show: (i) that intact platelets possess on their surface an ecto-PKA which can preferentially phosphorylate Vn; (ii) that in the resting platelet, both the catalytic and the regulatory subunits of PKA are present on the platelet surface, in the surface-connected canalicular system, and within the alpha-granules of the platelets; (iii) that the process initiated upon platelet activation, which leads to the formation of fibrin fibers and consequently forms the fibrin net, is accompanied by a translocation of PKA, of Vn, and of PAI-1 onto the fibrin fibers.

Differential expression of the protein kinase A regulatory subunit (RIalpha) in pancreatic endocrine cells.

A PCR-based subtractive cloning procedure was used to identify genes expressed at higher levels in the pancreatic beta cell line betaTC1, as compared to the pancreatic alpha cell line alphaTC1. One of the clones isolated by this procedure corresponded to the regulatory subunit (RIalpha) of protein kinase A (PKA). Using antibodies directed against RIalpha, we now demonstrate both by immunoblot and immunofluorescence that RIalpha protein is present at higher levels in cultured beta cells as compared to alpha cells.