Nitric oxide directed reprogramming of rat bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells into endothelial-like cells via activation of WNT/β-catenin signaling

Nitric oxide plays an important role in stem cell differentiation and in endothelial cells it is expressed by endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) which is located within membrane caveolae through scaffolding with caveolin-1 (CAV-1WT) which inhibits NO production. In this study, we modified rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (rBMSCs) with lentiviral vectors to co-express eNOS and mutant caveolin-1 (CAV-1F92A) to enhance NO generation and investigated endothelial reprogramming.