The New Role of CD163 in the Differentiation of Bone Marrow Stromal Cells into Vascular Endothelial-Like Cells

Figure 1

Overexpression of CD163 enhanced the expression of endothelial-associated markers and uptake of Alexa 488-Ac-LDL in BMSCs. For CD163 overexpression, BMSCs were transfected with empty vector pCMV6 (as control) at 1.6 μg/mL or pCMV6-CD163 at 0.4, 0.8, or 1.6 μg/mL for 4 h and cultured for 48 h. Ctr: control. (a) Western blot analysis of CD163 overexpression efficiency. (b) Relative levels of CD163 protein were calculated based on densitometry analysis. ((c)-(d)) Western blot analysis of the protein level of the endothelial-associated markers CD31 and Flk-1 after being transfected with pCMV6 or pCMV6-CD163 for 48 h. (e) Uptake of Alexa 488-Ac-LDL by cells after being transfected with pCMV6 or pCMV6-CD163 at 0.8 μg/mL for 48 h. Scale bar: 10 μm. Images are representative of at least 3 independent experiments. (f) Relative uptake level of Alexa 488-Ac-LDL was calculated by LCS lite. The uptake level of HUVEC was set as 1. HUVEC: human umbilical vascular endothelial cells as a positive control. Data are mean ± SEM. , versus control (Ctr), .

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