Fig. 4: Proteomic assessment of human adipose tissue-derived microvascular endothelial cells (HAMVECs) suggests that their proliferation is suppressed by adipose tissue-derived stromal/stem cells (ASCs).

a Workflow depicting the proteomic comparison of HAMVECs with endothelial cell (EC) controls representative of the predominant endothelial specializations, namely human umbilical vein ECs (HUVECs; macrovascular, venous endothelium), human coronary artery ECs (HCAECs; macrovascular, arterial endothelium), and human dermal microvascular ECs (HDMVECs; microvascular endothelium). b Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of the proteomes of the ECs derived from four different vascular beds. c Distribution of detected proteins amongst the different ECs. d Hierarchical clustering of the proteins detected in different abundances (p < 0.05) between EC types. e Biological pathways differentiating HAMVECs from all other types of ECs. Black bars highlight those related to proliferation; and white bars metabolism. f Population doubling times of the different ECs, determined from their exponential growth phase observed over 7 days of culture. Values represent mean ± standard deviation; and *p < 0.05 compared with HAMVECs. g Purities of the different EC cultures. Values represent mean ± standard deviation; and, *p < 0.05 compared with HAMVECs. h Representative zones of inhibition surrounding residual ASCs in primary cultures of HAMVECs that were maintained at confluence for over 3 weeks. Scale bar represents 500 µm. All experiments were performed in biological triplicate, using cells derived from three different donors (n = 3 biologically independent samples).