Establishment of functional cells for vascular defect disease from human embryonic stem cell via region sorting depending on cell volume

Human embryonic stem cells have been highlighted as a valuable cellular source in the regenerative medicine field, due to their pluripotency. However, there is the challenge of the establishment of specific functional cell type forms of undifferentiated human embryonic stem cells (hESC). To establish and purify functional cell types from hESCs, we differentiated undifferentiated hESCs into vascular lineage cells and sorted the specific cell population from the whole cell population, depending on their cell volume, and compared them with the non-sorted cell population. We observed that about 10% of the PECAM positive population existed in the VEGF induced differentiating human embryoid body (hEB), and differentiated hEBs were made into single cells for cell transplantation. After making single cells, we performed cell sorting using a fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACs), according to their cell volume on the basis of FSC region gating, and compared their therapeutic capacity with the non-sorted cell population through cell transplantation into hindlimb ischemic disease model mice. 4 Weeks after cell transplantation, the recovery rate of blood perfusion reached 54% and 17% in the FSC regions of sorted cells- and non-sorted cells, respectively. This result suggests that derivation of a functional cell population from hESCs can be performed through cell sorting on the basis of cell volume after preliminary differentiation induction. This approach may then greatly contribute to overcoming the limitations of marker sorting.