Selecting suitable cell sources and angiogenesis induction are two important issues in myocardial tissue engineering.
Human endometrial stromal cells (EnSCs) have been introduced as an abundant and easily available resource
in regenerative medicine. Bioactive glass is an agent that induces angiogenesis and has been studied in
some experiments. The aim of this study was to investigate in vitro differentiation capacity of endometrial
stem cells into cardiomyocyte lineage and to evaluate capability of bioactive glass nanoparticles toward EnSCs
differentiation into endothelial lineage and angiogenesis on hydrogel scaffold. Our findings suggests that endometrial
stem cells could be programmed into cardiomyocyte linage and considered a suitable cell source for myocardial
regeneration. This experiment also revealed that inclusion of bioactive glass nanoparticles in hydrogel
scaffold could improve angiogenesis through differentiating EnSCs toward endothelial lineage and increasing
level of vascular endothelial growth factor secretion.