Emerging mechanisms of vascular stabilization.
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.
London
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Department of Oncological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
Smith
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Li
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D001808:Blood Vessels / Q000294:innervation*; D019521:Body Patterning / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D018919:Neovascularization, Physiologic; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology