Generation of human vascular smooth muscle subtypes from human embryonic stem cells

This protocol describes for the first time, a detailed method to generate vascular smooth muscle cells (SMC) from its three developmental contributers:  neuroectoderm, paraxial mesoderm and lateral plate mesoderm progenitor cells, all of which can be derived from human embryonic stem cells. The derived SMCs display contractile ability upon stimulation and have been shown to support vessel formation when transplanted in-vivo. The developmental origin-specific SMC subtypes, enable the study of unique features of the derived SMC subtypes, such as extracellular matrix degradation.