The presence of circulating endothelial repopulating cells in the adult human peripheral blood has been proposed since long time ago. In the late 1990s, the putative endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) were first identified and reported by Asahara and co-workers. Since then, a number of studies have demonstrated that these cells are derived from bone marrow and induce microvascular vasculogenesis and re-endothelialization of injured vessels. Meantime, human umbilical cord blood also gained much attention for the reason of possible additional source to obtain EPCs since cord blood has been shown to contain more number of active hematopoietic stem cells as compared to adult peripheral blood. This review summarizes the aspect of human cord blood-derived EPCs with special focuses into their identity and future clinical application.
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