These findings show that dysregulated angiogenic precursors link coronary anomalies to ischemic heart disease.Though coronary arteries are crucial for heart function, the mechanisms guiding their formation are largely unknown.Here, Wang et al. identify a unique, endocardially-derived angiogenic precursor cell population for coronary artery formation in mice and show that a DLL4/NOTCH1/VEGFA/VEGFR2 signaling axis is key for coronary artery development.
Therefore, transplantation of Dll‑4‑overexpressing endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) was hypothesized to be superior to transplantation of EPCs in the treatment of ischemic heart disease.