Discussion

Vascular biology plays a critical role in many aspects of normal and disease-relevant physiology, including: barrier function, inflammation, cell migration (wound healing and metastasis), thrombosis and hemostasis, atherosclerosis, as well as angiogenesis. The development of reliable vascular biology tools, such as endothelial cells (ECs), is a critical need for the generation of relevant in vitro human disease models for drug and therapeutic research, as well as enabling regenerative medicine. To that end, we have developed human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived endothelial cells (iCell® Endothelial Cells) that exhibit vascular endothelial markers and characteristics, and offer a physiologically relevant human in vitro system to study complex cellular processes of vasculogenesis.
Here, we describe the use of iCell Endothelial Cells in a real-time electronic cell sensor impedance array technology to monitor endothelial cell morphogenesis. We assessed the impact of serum, growth factors (e.g. VEGF, EGF, FGF-2), and small-molecule angiogenesis inhibitors (e.g. Sunitinib, SU1498) on the proliferation, migration, and invasion of iPSC-derived ECs compared to primary cells, such as HUVECs. We observed that the combination of human iPSC-derived ECs and real-time monitoring platform provides a biologically relevant human model system for measuring and quantifying modulation of endothelial cell morphogenesis.
The data presented demonstrate that the iPSC-derived ECs provide a stable, well-defined source of human ECs that are well-suited for investigating vascularization and angiogenesis studies and particularly useful for addressing current challenges facing vascular therapeutic development and tissue engineering applications.

Sabine Lange1, David Belair1, Coby Carlson1, Arne Thompson1 , Yama Abassi3, David Mann1
(1) Cellular Dynamics International, Inc., Madison, WI USA; (2) Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison; (3) ACEA Biosciences, San Diego, CA