Vascular differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells

Abstract

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) are an unlimited source of endothelial and smooth muscle cells for regenerative medicine, drug screening, and toxicology assays. Significant advances have been made in the last 10 years in driving the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells into vascular cells and some of the approaches have been implemented recently in the differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells. This chapter reviews the progresses done so far in the vascular differentiation of hPSCs focusing in the efficiency and kinetics of the differentiation protocols, inductive signals, maturation, and functionality of the hPSC-derived cells and their therapeutic potential.