Figure 1: MicroRNA-mediated EC differentiation. Both miR200c and miR-150 promote EC differentiation by transcriptionally de-repressing ZEB1 expression, while miR-21 enhances EC differentiation through inhibition of PTEN/Akt pathway. Moreover, miR-21 also indirectly enhanced TGF-β2 production, resulting in EC gene activation in a SMAD3-dependent manner. However, miR-181a/b and miR-99b mediate EC lineage specification through yet uncharacterized mechanism.