Accumulating evidence demonstrates that pre-vascularization of tissue-engineered constructs can significantly enhance their survival and engraftment upon transplantation. Endothelial cells (ECs), the basic component of vasculatures, are indispensable to the entire process of pre-vascularization. However, the source of ECs still poses an issue. Recent studies confirmed that diverse approaches are available in the derivation of ECs for tissue engineering, such as direct isolation of autologous ECs, reprogramming of somatic cells, and induced differentiation of stem cells in typology. Herein, we discussed a variety of human stem cells (i.e., totipotent, pluripotent, multipotent, oligopotent, and unipotent stem cells), which can be induced to differentiate into ECs and reviewed the multifarious approaches for EC generation, such as 3D EB formation for embryonic stem cells (ESCs), stem cell-somatic cell co-culture, and directed endothelial differentiation with growth factors in conventional 2D culture.
Keywords: 3D EB formation; Endothelial cells; Human stem cells; Tissue engineering.