Hypoxic/Normoxic Preconditioning Increases Endothelial Differentiation Potential of Human Bone Marrow CD133+ Cells

CD133+ cells are hemangioblasts that have capacity to generate into both hematopoietic and endothelial cells (ECs). Hypoxia/normoxia has shown to be the regulator of the balance between stemness and differentiation. In this study we performed Agilent's whole human genome oligo microarray analysis and examined the differentiation potential of the bone-marrow-derived CD133+ cells after hypoxic/normoxic preconditioning of CD133+ cells. Results showed that there was no significant increase in erythroid colony forming unit (CFU-E) and CFU-granulocyte, erythrocyte, monocyte, and megakaryocyte formation with cells treated under hypoxia/normoxia. However, a significant increment of EC forming unit at 24 h (143.2 ± 8.0%) compared to 0 h (100 ±11.4%) was observed in CFU-EC analysis. Reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction and immunostaining analysis showed that the differentiated cells diminished hematopoietic stem cell surface markers and acquired the gene markers and functional phenotype of ECs. The trans...