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Objective Stem cell therapy for angiogenesis and vascular regeneration has been investigated using adult or embryonic stem cells. In the present study, we investigated the potential of endothelial cells (ECs) derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) to promote the perfusion of ischemic tissue in a murine model of peripheral arterial disease. Methods and Results Endothelial differentiation was initiated by culturing hiPSCs for 14 days in differentiation media supplemented with BMP-4 and VEGF. The hiPSC-ECs exhibited endothelial characteristics by forming capillary-like structures in matrigel and incorporating acetylated-LDL. They stained positively for EC markers such as KDR, CD31, CD144 and eNOS. In vitro exposure of hiPSC-ECs to hypoxia resulted in increased expression of various angiogenic related cytokines and growth factors. hiPSC-ECs were stably transduced with a double fusion construct encoded by the ubiquitin promoter, firefly luciferase for bioluminescence imaging (BLI) and green fluorescence protein (GFP) for fluorescent detection (pUb-Fluc-GFP). The hiPSC-ECs (5×105) were delivered by intramuscular injection into the ischemic hindlimb of SCID mice at day 0 and again on day 7 after femoral artery ligation (n=8). BLI showed that hiPSC-ECs survived in the ischemic limb for at least 2 weeks. In addition, laser Doppler imaging showed that the ratio of blood perfusion was increased by hiPSC-EC treatment by comparison to the saline-treated group (0.58±0.12 vs 0.44±0.04; P=0.005). The total number of capillaries in the ischemic limb of mice receiving hiPSC-EC injections was greater than those in the saline-treated group (1284 ±155 vs. 797±206 capillaries/mm2) (P<0.002). Conclusion This study is a first step toward development of a regenerative strategy for peripheral arterial disease based on the use of ECs derived from hiPSCs.

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Recent evidence suggests human embryonic stem (ES) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell lines have differences in their epigenetics marks and transcriptomes, yet the impact of these differences on subsequent terminally differentiated cells is less well understood. Comparison of purified, homogeneous populations of somatic cells derived from multiple independent human iPS and ES lines will be required to address this critical question. Here, we report a differentiation protocol based on embryonic development that consistently yields large numbers of endothelial cells (EC) derived from multiple human ES or iPS cells. Mesoderm differentiation of embryoid bodies was maximized and defined growth factors were used to generate KDR+ EC progenitors. Magnetic purification of a KDR+ progenitor subpopulation resulted in an expanding, homogeneous pool of ECs that expressed EC markers and had functional properties of ECs. Comparison of the transcriptomes revealed limited gene expression variability between multiple lines of human iPS–derived ECs, or between lines of ES– and iPS–derived ECs. These results demonstrate a method to generate large numbers of pure human EC progenitors and differentiated ECs from pluripotent stem cells, and suggest individual lineages derived from human iPS cells may have significantly less variance than their pluripotent founders.