Thrombosis and in-stent restenosis are the main obstacles in the healing process after cardiovascular surgery. A promising way to achieve the healing process after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty followed by stenting may rely on the rapid in situ endothelialization on the materials of implants. Several requirements are raised to achieve in situ endothelialization, of which the specifically endothelial cells (ECs) homing and the non-specific cells repulsion come first. In this work, heparin/chitosan multilayer was constructed with thromboresistant and non-specifically cell-resistant properties. The specific ECs adhesive peptide sequence Arg-Glu-Asp-Val (REDV) was then immobilized onto the pristine multilayer and the cell responses of ECs and smooth muscle cells (SMCs) were verified. It is interesting that ECs selective attachment was obtained on the REDV functionalized multilayer, whereas the multilayer maintains resisting to the SMCs. These results show that the REDV functionalized cell-resistant heparin/chitosan multilayer is a ECs selective surface, which may have great potential in cardiovascular biomaterials for in situ endothelialization. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.