Statins, EPCs, and Capillary Density Figure 4. In Vitro Pravastatin and Simvastatin Promotes Outgrowth of LOEPCs from Blood Mononuclear Cells. Mononuclear cells were obtained from normal young pigs and cultured on type I collagen to derived LOEPCs. The quantity of LOEPCs per 36107MNCs plated was determined using flow cytometry for PECAM positive cells after 14 days in culture. The data are presented as the means 6 SEM from eight different animals. * p,0.05, ** p,0.01 vs. control using a paired t-test. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0024868.g004 branch points were determined for each experimental condition. We found that the total segment length of vessels formed in Matrigel was significantly reduced upon incubation with Pravastatin, Simvastatin and Atorvastatin (Figure 7A and B, p,0.05), while Simvastatin and Atorvastatin significantly increased the number of vessel branch points (Figure 7A and C, p,0.05) in comparison with Figure 5. In Vitro Pravastatin and Simvastatin Promotes Growth of LOEPCs under Clonogenic Conditions. LOEPC cell lines from pigs were plated under limiting dilution conditions in the absence or presence of pravastatin or simvastatin. The number of LOEPCs was determined after seven days of growth with or without statin. The data are presented as the means 6 SEM from eight independent experiments. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0024868.g005 PLoS ONE | www.plosone.org 6 September 2011 | Volume 6 | Issue 9 | e24868