DiI-Ac-LDL uptake and FITC-UEA-1 binding assay
As previously reported[23-27], DiI-Ac-LDL (Life Technologies, MD, USA) and FITC-UEA-I (Sigma, MO, USA) was added to anchorage-dependent cells that had been cultured for 7 days, and then cells were observed under a fluorescence microscope (Olympus, Tokyo, Japan). Double-positive-stained cells were considered as ECs, and the EC numbers on the 3 random views per well were counted manually [23-27].