The Role of South Asian vs European Origins on
Circulating Regenerative Cell Exhaustion
The ORIGINS-RCE CardioLink-13 Trial

It has been well established that South Asian people are at higher risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease than other populations, in part because of the greater prevalence of type 2 diabetes and lipid disorders. Given that the majority of research trial data are from white individuals of European origins, there is little insight into the basis of the increased cardiovascular disease burden faced by South Asian individuals.
Regenerative Cell Exhaustion (RCE) is characterized by the loss of stem cells that facilitate blood vessel repair and their impaired capacity to fix damaged blood vessels. The ORIGINS-RCE CardioLink-13 trial was designed to determine if the susceptibility of persons of South Asian descent can be attributed, in part, to alterations in RCE. ORIGINS-RCE utilized a novel flow cytometry technique to evaluate and count circulating stem cell populations to measure RCE. The primary data was published in JACC (Krishnaraj et al 2024) and provides the first evidence that South Asian individuals have compromised vessel repair capabilities compared to white people of European descent.