Congenital, Hereditary, and Neonatal Diseases and Abnormalities Commons^™

Characterization Of Hemangioma-Initiating Stem Cells, Natalie Montwill

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Infantile hemangioma (IH) is the most common vascular tumour of infancy. IH undergoes a unique life cycle consisting of robust endothelial cell proliferation and vessel formation in the proliferating phase, followed by spontaneous regression in the involuting phase. Our laboratory has shown that IH arises from multipotential stem cells termed hemangioma stem cells (HemSCs). However, the phenotype of HemSCs has not been fully elucidated. Here, I examined HemSCs and compared these lesion-derived cells to a panel of normal counterparts. My results show that HemSCs share similar gene expression profiles with human fetal liver-derived stem cells (FLSCs) and postnatal bone marrow …