Coculture of Endothelial Cells and Smooth Muscle Cells in Bilayer and Conditioned Media Models

Serotonin passes through myoendothelial gap junctions to promote pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cell differentiation

“…Although paracrine signaling and direct cell-cell contact between arterial ECs and SMCs have been shown in numerous studies to regulate the phenotype of SMCs (4,10,15,18,19,26,27,31,32,34), the signals exchanged during the direct cell-cell contact have not been fully defined. Using the EC/ SMC coculture system established by Isakson communication between the cocultured cells was blocked by pharmacological inhibitors or genetic ablation of the gap junctional protein Cx-43, the differentiation of PASMCs was prevented.…”

Human pericyte–endothelial cell interactions in co-culture models mimicking the diabetic retinal microvascular environment

“…Evidence in the literature shows that smooth muscle cells, grown on the outer surface of the same type of membrane used in this work, send out cytoplasmic projections able to penetrate the pores and make intimate contact with EC [19] and the same membrane has been used to create other direct co-culture models [16].…”

The prostacyclin receptor induces human vascular smooth muscle cell differentiation via the protein kinase A pathway

“…Human VSMC were isolated by explant method from iliac or aortic arterial samples from organ donors or superficial femoral arteries obtained after lower extremity amputation for peripheral vascular occlusive disease (9), in accordance with Institutional Review Board-approved protocols. The cells were cultured in medium 199 (M199) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS), L-glutamine, penicillin-streptomycin, fibroblast growth factor (Promega, Madison, WI), and epidermal growth factor.…”