Intimal accumulation of smooth muscle cells contributes to the development and progression of atherosclerotic lesions and restenosis following endovascular procedures. Arterial smooth muscle cells display heterogeneous phenotypes in both physiological and pathological conditions. In response to injury, dedifferentiated or synthetic smooth muscle cells proliferate and migrate from the tunica media into the intima. As a consequence, smooth muscle cells in vascular lesions show a prevalent dedifferentiated phenotype compared to the contractile appearance of normal media smooth muscle cells. The discovery of abundant stem antigen-expressing cells in vascular lesions also rarely detected in the tunica media of normal adult vessels stimulated a great scientific debate concerning the possibility that proliferating vascular wall-resident stem cells accumulate into the neointima and contribute to the progression of lesions. Although several experimental studies support this hypothesis, others researchers suggest a positive effect of stem cells on plaque stabilization. So, the real contribute of vascular wall-resident stem cells to pathological vascular remodelling needs further investigation. This review will examine the evidence and the contribution of vascular wall-resident stem cells to arterial pathobiology, in order to address future investigations as potential therapeutic target to prevent the progression of vascular diseases.

中文翻译：

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常驻血管干细胞对动脉病理的贡献。

血管内手术后，平滑肌细胞的内膜蓄积有助于动脉粥样硬化病变的发展和进展以及再狭窄。动脉平滑肌细胞在生理和病理条件下均表现出异质表型。响应损伤，去分化或合成的平滑肌细胞增生并从中膜迁移到内膜。结果，与正常培养基平滑肌细胞的收缩外观相比，血管病变中的平滑肌细胞表现出普遍的去分化表型。在正常成年血管的中膜血管中也很少发现表达丰富的干抗原表达细胞，这激起了关于增殖血管壁驻留干细胞积聚到新内膜并促进病变进展的可能性的科学辩论。 。尽管一些实验研究支持这一假说，但其他研究人员却提出干细胞对菌斑稳定有积极作用。因此，血管壁驻留干细胞对病理性血管重塑的真正贡献有待进一步研究。这项审查将检查证据和血管壁驻留干细胞对动脉病理生物学的贡献，以解决将来的研究，作为预防血管疾病发展的潜在治疗靶点。