Molecular analysis of endothelial progenitor cell (EPC) subtypes

Genome -wide analysis of EPC subtypes obtained from both umbilical cord and peripheral blood. This experiment sought to compare the expression levels of eEPCs and OECs against monocytes and human dermal microvascular cells (HDMECs) in order to establish if these cells are linked to a monocytic or endothelial lineage. This is very important as the term EPC is currently used to describe cell populations which are quite dissimilar in terms of biological properties. Total RNA was isolated from 7 day old eEPCs, early passage OECs, freshly isolated CD14+ monocytes and early passage DMECs using RNAqueous kit. Three biological replicates per EPC subtype from peripheral blood was used for trancriptome analysis using Illumina Human WG-6 v3.9 beadchip.