Epigenetic program leading to vessel differentiation
Regenerative medicine has made remarkable progress due to research with embryonic stem (ES) cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. However, the mechanism of how blood vessels are constructed from these undifferentiated cells has not yet been clarified. During the creation of new blood vessels, the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein differentiates stem cells into vascular endothelial cells and stimulates them to create new blood vessels. Researchers at Kumamoto University added VEGF to undifferentiated ES cells and tracked the behavior of the entire genome and epigenome changes over time in vitro. Using ES cells developed at Kyoto University's Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, the research group collected RNA and histones of each cell immediately after VEGF stimulation (0 h), before differentiation (6 h), during differentiation (12 -- 24 h), and after differentiation (48 h). They then comprehensively analyzed the changes in the whole genome and epi...