Isolation of Perivascular Multipotent Precursor Cell Populations from Human Cardiac Tissue

Multipotent mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSC) were conventionally isolated, through their plastic adherence, from primary tissue digests whilst their anatomical tissue location remained unclear. The recent discovery of defined perivascular and MSC cell marker expression by perivascular cells in multiple tissues by our group and other researchers has provided an opportunity to prospectively isolate and purify specific homogenous subpopulations of multipotent perivascular precursor cells. We have previously demonstrated the use of fluorescent activated cell sorting (FACS) to purify microvascular CD146⁺CD34^- pericytes and vascular CD34⁺CD146^- adventitial cells from human skeletal muscle. Herein we describe a method to simultaneously isolate these two perivascular cell subsets from human myocardium by FACS, based on the expression of a defined set of cell surface markers for positive and negative selections. This method thus makes available two specific subpopulations of multipotent cardiac MSC-like precursor cells for use in basic research and/or therapeutic investigations.