Emergent mechanical control of vascular morphogenesis.

Vascularization is driven by morphogen signals and mechanical cues that coordinately regulate cellular force generation, migration, and shape change to sculpt the developing vascular network. However, it remains unclear whether developing vasculature actively regulates its own mechanical properties to achieve effective vascularization. We engineered tissue constructs containing endothelial cells and fibroblasts to investigate the mechanics of vascularization. Tissue stiffness increases during vascular morphogenesis resulting from emergent interactions between endothelial cells, fibroblasts, and ECM and correlates with enhanced vascular function. Contractile cellular forces are key to emergent tissue stiffening and synergize with ECM mechanical properties to modulate the mechanics of vascularization. Emergent tissue stiffening and vascular function rely on mechanotransduction signaling within fibroblasts, mediated by YAP1. Mouse embryos lacking YAP1 in fibroblasts exhibit both reduced tissue stiffness and develop lethal vascular defects. Translating our findings through biology-inspired vascular tissue engineering approaches will have substantial implications in regenerative medicine.

Distal enhancers: new insights into heart development and disease.

Advances in genome research have provided an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the function of non-coding DNA regulatory regions that control transcription. Large-scale studies have recently identified hundreds of thousands of distal enhancer elements; their discovery has revealed new insights into the mechanistic details of how tissue-specific gene expression patterns are established and maintained during development. Emerging evidence indicates that lineage-specific transcription factors and chromatin regulators coordinate the activation of distal enhancers to ensure robust control of gene expression programs in a cell type-specific manner. We discuss recent progress in the field and emphasize examples related to the cardiac lineage, where possible, as a model for understanding the contribution of enhancer biology to development and how disruption of enhancer function leads to disease.

Staying alive: metabolic adaptations to quiescence.

Quiescence is a state of reversible cell cycle arrest that can grant protection against many environmental insults. In some systems, cellular quiescence is associated with a low metabolic state characterized by a decrease in glucose uptake and glycolysis, reduced translation rates and activation of autophagy as a means to provide nutrients for survival. For cells in multiple different quiescence model systems, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, mammalian lymphocytes and hematopoietic stem cells, the PI3Kinase/TOR signaling pathway helps to integrate information about nutrient availability with cell growth rates. Quiescence signals often inactivate the TOR kinase, resulting in reduced cell growth and biosynthesis. However, quiescence is not always associated with reduced metabolism; it is also possible to achieve a state of cellular quiescence in which glucose uptake, glycolysis and flux through central carbon metabolism are not reduced. In this review, we compare and contrast the metabolic changes that occur with quiescence in different model systems.