title: Emerging mechanisms of vascular stabilization.
abstract: Neural guidance cues are essential for a growing axon to correctly course through the body and innervate target tissues. Interestingly, the vascular network follows a parallel trajectory along nerves, suggesting that guidance cues important for neural patterning may also be required for proper vascular patterning. However, while an axon arises from one cell, a blood vessel is composed of many endothelial cells. Recent evidence suggests that neural repulsive cues are usurped by multi-cellular blood vessels to ensure vascular stabilization cues. Additional clues into the signaling mechanisms that promote vascular stabilization are emerging from cerebral cavernous malformations, a disease characterized by headache, epilepsy, and stroke. Thus, neurobiology and neurology are providing insights into the concepts of vascular stability.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
authors.forename: N R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: London
authors.forename: M C P
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: D Y
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D001808:Blood Vessels / Q000294:innervation*; D019521:Body Patterning / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D018919:Neovascularization, Physiologic; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology