FBS Colloquia No.392Laboratory of Tissue Regeneration

Characterizing Vascular Endothelial Stem Cells: Insights into Development and Aging of CD157^⁺CD200^⁺ Populations

Organ-specific somatic stem cells are essential for maintaining tissue homeostasis and enabling regeneration after injury. Among them, hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) remain the gold standard, as they are the only stem cell population that has met all the defining criteria of stemness and are routinely used in clinical transplantation. In contrast, isolating and defining true stem cell populations from other organs remains a significant challenge. Nevertheless, there is growing interest in other organ-specific stem cells, including vascular endothelial stem cells (VESCs). Our laboratory has focused on identifying and characterizing VESCs and has previously reported CD157 and CD200 as useful markers for isolating VESCs from adult mouse tissues, particularly in the liver. In this presentation, I will summarize our findings on the developmental trajectory of CD157^⁺CD200^⁺ VESCs in the liver from the fetal to postnatal stages, and conclude with a discussion on how aging influences the VESC population and vascular regenerative capacity.