Acidic preconditioning of endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFC) promote vasculogenesis under proinflammatory and high glucose conditions in vitro and in vivo

Background We have previously demonstrated that acidic preconditioning of human endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFC) increased proliferation, migration, and tubulogenesis in vitro, and increased their regenerative potential in a murine model of hind limb ischemia without baseline disease. We now analyze whether this strategy is also effective under adverse conditions for vasculogenesis, such as the presence of ischemia-related toxic molecules or diabetes, one of the main target diseases for cell therapy due to their well-known healing impairments.