Hi Laura Ch Isolated EC's have many different flavors. There are HUVECs, artery, coronary, microvascular, BBB, etc.
The main thing is that most EC's in our bodies are terminally differentiated to keep them where they are for homeostasis. Having free ECs in the circulation is an anomaly.
I would welcome any technique that could harvest and grow EC's from patient samples. But there is a Catch-22.
If you captured and grew ECs from patient samples, you are assuming that they have the same phenotype in culture as they have in vivo but you don't know that because you don't know what phenotype they have in vivo compared to the culture.