Fig. 1

The expansion and differentiation of EPCs derived from CD34⁺ cells of human PB. The isolated human PB CD34⁺ cells were cultured in modified IMDM medium supplemented with human cytokine combinations for the first 6 days. Then, the adhering endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs)/endothelial cells (ECs) were subsequently differentiated in EBM-2 basal medium with endothelial growth factors from 7 days; the cell numbers and expansion folds were calculated at different time points. a Cell morphology imaged with an optical microscope on days 0, 3, 6, 15, 21, and 36 (scale bar = 50 μm). b (left) Absolute number of total cells and CD34⁺ cells from day 0 to day 6; (right) fold-increase in cell number expansion of total cells and CD34⁺ cells from day 0 to day 6. c The expression of CD133 and VEGFR2 in the early EPCs from day 0 to day 6. d Expansion fold of human EPCs/ECs over the initial EPCs derived from human PB CD34⁺ cells from day 0 to day36. The data represent means ± SD, n = 3