Figure 4.

Endothelial differentiation of renal tissue-derived CD133+ cells. a–f: Representative cytofluorimetric analysis of CD133+ cells cultured in endothelial differentiating medium. After 10 days of culture, cells lost CD133 expression (a); maintained the expression of CD44 (b); and acquired the endothelial markers Muc18 (c), KDR (d), CD105 (e), and VE-cadherin (f). g: The expression of vWF in the classical cytoplasmic punctuate pattern by endothelial differentiated cells, which were negative for cytokeratin (inset) (immunofluorescence micrograph). h–j: Scanning electron microscopy showing spontaneous cell organization on Matrigel. Endothelial differentiated cells (i, j), but not CD133+ undifferentiated cells (h) within 4 hours aligned to form ring-like structures. k: The expression of vWF by differentiated endothelial cells plated on Matrigel. Eight cell preparations and 10 clones were studied with similar results. Original magnifications: ×200 (h, i); × 400 (g, k); ×750 (j).