WASp controls oriented migration of endothelial cells to achieve functional vascular patterning.

Endothelial cell migration and proliferation are essential for the establishment of a hierarchical organization of blood vessels and optimal distribution of blood. However, how these cellular processes are quantitatively coordinated to drive vascular network morphogenesis remains unknown. Here, using the zebrafish vasculature as a model system, we demonstrate that the balanced distribution of endothelial cells, as well as the resulting regularity of vessel calibre, is a result of cell migration from veins towards arteries and cell proliferation in veins. We identify the Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome protein (WASp) as an important molecular regulator of this process and show that loss of coordinated migration from veins to arteries upon wasb depletion results in aberrant vessel morphology and the formation of persistent arteriovenous shunts. We demonstrate that WASp achieves its function through the coordination of junctional actin assembly and PECAM1 recruitment and provide evidence that this is conserved in humans. Overall, we demonstrate that functional vascular patterning in the zebrafish trunk is established through differential cell migration regulated by junctional actin, and that interruption of differential migration may represent a pathomechanism in vascular malformations.

Inhibition of Vascular Growth by Modulation of the Anandamide/Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase Axis.

OBJECTIVE: Pathological angiogenesis is a hallmark of various diseases characterized by local hypoxia and inflammation. These disorders can be treated with inhibitors of angiogenesis, but current compounds display a variety of side effects and lose efficacy over time. This makes the identification of novel signaling pathways and pharmacological targets involved in angiogenesis a top priority. Approach and Results: Here, we show that inactivation of FAAH (fatty acid amide hydrolase), the enzyme responsible for degradation of the endocannabinoid anandamide, strongly impairs angiogenesis in vitro and in vivo. Both, the pharmacological FAAH inhibitor URB597 and anandamide induce downregulation of gene sets for cell cycle progression and DNA replication in endothelial cells. This is underscored by cell biological experiments, in which both compounds inhibit proliferation and migration and evoke cell cycle exit of endothelial cells. This prominent antiangiogenic effect is also of pathophysiological relevance in vivo, as laser-induced choroidal neovascularization in the eye of FAAH-/- mice is strongly reduced. CONCLUSIONS: Thus, elevation of endogenous anandamide levels by FAAH inhibition represents a novel antiangiogenic mechanism.

Assessment of flow within developing chicken vasculature and biofabricated vascularized tissues using multimodal imaging techniques.

Fluid flow shear stresses are strong regulators for directing the organization of vascular networks. Knowledge of structural and flow dynamics information within complex vasculature is essential for tuning the vascular organization within engineered tissues, by manipulating flows. However, reported investigations of vascular organization and their associated flow dynamics within complex vasculature over time are limited, due to limitations in the available physiological pre-clinical models, and the optical inaccessibility and aseptic nature of these models. Here, we developed laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) and side-stream dark field microscopy (SDF) systems to map the vascular organization, spatio-temporal blood flow fluctuations as well as erythrocytes movements within individual blood vessels of developing chick embryo, cultured within an artificial eggshell system. By combining imaging data and computational simulations, we estimated fluid flow shear stresses within multiscale vasculature of varying complexity. Furthermore, we demonstrated the LSCI compatibility with bioengineered perfusable muscle tissue constructs, fabricated via molding techniques. The presented application of LSCI and SDF on perfusable tissues enables us to study the flow perfusion effects in a non-invasive fashion. The gained knowledge can help to use fluid perfusion in order to tune and control multiscale vascular organization within engineered tissues.

Hypoxia Pathway Proteins and Their Impact on the Blood Vasculature.

Every cell in the body requires oxygen for its functioning, in virtually every animal, and a tightly regulated system that balances oxygen supply and demand is therefore fundamental. The vascular network is one of the first systems to sense oxygen, and deprived oxygen (hypoxia) conditions automatically lead to a cascade of cellular signals that serve to circumvent the negative effects of hypoxia, such as angiogenesis associated with inflammation, tumor development, or vascular disorders. This vascular signaling is driven by central transcription factors, namely the hypoxia inducible factors (HIFs), which determine the expression of a growing number of genes in endothelial cells and pericytes. HIF functions are tightly regulated by oxygen sensors known as the HIF-prolyl hydroxylase domain proteins (PHDs), which are enzymes that hydroxylate HIFs for eventual proteasomal degradation. HIFs, as well as PHDs, represent attractive therapeutic targets under various pathological settings, including those involving vascular (dys)function. We focus on the characteristics and mechanisms by which vascular cells respond to hypoxia under a variety of conditions.

Selective and Marked Blockade of Endothelial Sprouting Behavior Using Paclitaxel and Related Pharmacologic Agents.

Whether alterations in the microtubule cytoskeleton affect the ability of endothelial cells (ECs) to sprout and form branching networks of tubes was investigated in this study. Bioassays of human EC tubulogenesis, where both sprouting behavior and lumen formation can be rigorously evaluated, were used to demonstrate that addition of the microtubule-stabilizing drugs, paclitaxel, docetaxel, ixabepilone, and epothilone B, completely interferes with EC tip cells and sprouting behavior, while allowing for EC lumen formation. In bioassays mimicking vasculogenesis using single or aggregated ECs, these drugs induce ring-like lumens from single cells or cyst-like spherical lumens from multicellular aggregates with no evidence of EC sprouting behavior. Remarkably, treatment of these cultures with a low dose of the microtubule-destabilizing drug, vinblastine, led to an identical result, with complete blockade of EC sprouting, but allowing for EC lumen formation. Administration of paclitaxel in vivo markedly interfered with angiogenic sprouting behavior in developing mouse retina, providing corroboration. These findings reveal novel biological activities for pharmacologic agents that are widely utilized in multidrug chemotherapeutic regimens for the treatment of human malignant cancers. Overall, this work demonstrates that manipulation of microtubule stability selectively interferes with the ability of ECs to sprout, a necessary step to initiate and form branched capillary tube networks.

A ligand-insensitive UNC5B splicing isoform regulates angiogenesis by promoting apoptosis.

The Netrin-1 receptor UNC5B is an axon guidance regulator that is also expressed in endothelial cells (ECs), where it finely controls developmental and tumor angiogenesis. In the absence of Netrin-1, UNC5B induces apoptosis that is blocked upon Netrin-1 binding. Here, we identify an UNC5B splicing isoform (called UNC5B-Δ8) expressed exclusively by ECs and generated through exon skipping by NOVA2, an alternative splicing factor regulating vascular development. We show that UNC5B-Δ8 is a constitutively pro-apoptotic splicing isoform insensitive to Netrin-1 and required for specific blood vessel development in an apoptosis-dependent manner. Like NOVA2, UNC5B-Δ8 is aberrantly expressed in colon cancer vasculature where its expression correlates with tumor angiogenesis and poor patient outcome. Collectively, our data identify a mechanism controlling UNC5B's necessary apoptotic function in ECs and suggest that the NOVA2/UNC5B circuit represents a post-transcriptional pathway regulating angiogenesis.

Pathophysiological Roles of Stress-Activated Protein Kinases in Pulmonary Fibrosis.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is one of the most symptomatic progressive fibrotic lung diseases, in which patients have an extremely poor prognosis. Therefore, understanding the precise molecular mechanisms underlying pulmonary fibrosis is necessary for the development of new therapeutic options. Stress-activated protein kinases (SAPKs), c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38) are ubiquitously expressed in various types of cells and activated in response to cellular environmental stresses, including inflammatory and apoptotic stimuli. Type II alveolar epithelial cells, fibroblasts, and macrophages are known to participate in the progression of pulmonary fibrosis. SAPKs can control fibrogenesis by regulating the cellular processes and molecular functions in various types of lung cells (including cells of the epithelium, interstitial connective tissue, blood vessels, and hematopoietic and lymphoid tissue), all aspects of which remain to be elucidated. We recently reported that the stepwise elevation of intrinsic p38 signaling in the lungs is correlated with a worsening severity of bleomycin-induced fibrosis, indicating an importance of this pathway in the progression of pulmonary fibrosis. In addition, a transcriptome analysis of RNA-sequencing data from this unique model demonstrated that several lines of mechanisms are involved in the pathogenesis of pulmonary fibrosis, which provides a basis for further studies. Here, we review the accumulating evidence for the spatial and temporal roles of SAPKs in pulmonary fibrosis.

Visualizing Blood Vessel Development in Cultured Mouse Embryos Using Lightsheet Microscopy.

Lightsheet microscopy is a form of fluorescence microscopy that can be used to visualize specimen with high resolution, a large depth-of-field, and minimal photodamage and photobleaching as compared to traditional confocal microscopy. As this technology becomes much more readily available, it will be useful in revealing new findings in the cardiovascular development field that may be hidden or difficult to image. In this manuscript, we describe an approach for mounting and culturing postimplantation mouse embryos to visualize blood vessel development with a lightsheet microscope.

Topological data analysis distinguishes parameter regimes in the Anderson-Chaplain model of angiogenesis.

Angiogenesis is the process by which blood vessels form from pre-existing vessels. It plays a key role in many biological processes, including embryonic development and wound healing, and contributes to many diseases including cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. The structure of the resulting vessel networks determines their ability to deliver nutrients and remove waste products from biological tissues. Here we simulate the Anderson-Chaplain model of angiogenesis at different parameter values and quantify the vessel architectures of the resulting synthetic data. Specifically, we propose a topological data analysis (TDA) pipeline for systematic analysis of the model. TDA is a vibrant and relatively new field of computational mathematics for studying the shape of data. We compute topological and standard descriptors of model simulations generated by different parameter values. We show that TDA of model simulation data stratifies parameter space into regions with similar vessel morphology. The methodologies proposed here are widely applicable to other synthetic and experimental data including wound healing, development, and plant biology.

Capsule networks for segmentation of small intravascular ultrasound image datasets.

PURPOSE: Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging is crucial for planning and performing percutaneous coronary interventions. Automatic segmentation of lumen and vessel wall in IVUS images can thus help streamlining the clinical workflow. State-of-the-art results in image segmentation are achieved with data-driven methods like convolutional neural networks (CNNs). These need large amounts of training data to perform sufficiently well but medical image datasets are often rather small. A possibility to overcome this problem is exploiting alternative network architectures like capsule networks. METHODS: We systematically investigated different capsule network architecture variants and optimized the performance on IVUS image segmentation. We then compared our capsule network with corresponding CNNs under varying amounts of training images and network parameters. RESULTS: Contrary to previous works, our capsule network performs best when doubling the number of capsule types after each downsampling stage, analogous to typical increase rates of feature maps in CNNs. Maximum improvements compared to the baseline CNNs are 20.6% in terms of the Dice coefficient and 87.2% in terms of the average Hausdorff distance. CONCLUSION: Capsule networks are promising candidates when it comes to segmentation of small IVUS image datasets. We therefore assume that this also holds for ultrasound images in general. A reasonable next step would be the investigation of capsule networks for few- or even single-shot learning tasks.

Niches that regulate stem cells and hematopoiesis in adult bone marrow.

In mammals, hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) engage in hematopoiesis throughout adult life within the bone marrow, where they produce the mature cells necessary to maintain blood cell counts and immune function. In the bone marrow and spleen, HSCs are sustained in perivascular niches (microenvironments) associated with sinusoidal blood vessels-specialized veins found only in hematopoietic tissues. Endothelial cells and perivascular leptin receptor+ stromal cells produce the known factors required to maintain HSCs and many restricted progenitors in the bone marrow. Various other cells synthesize factors that maintain other restricted progenitors or modulate HSC or niche function. Recent studies identified new markers that resolve some of the heterogeneity among stromal cells and refine the localization of restricted progenitor niches. Other recent studies identified ways in which niches regulate HSC function and hematopoiesis beyond growth factors. We summarize the current understanding of hematopoietic niches, review recent progress, and identify important unresolved questions.

Pseudolaric acid B ameliorates synovial inflammation and vessel formation by stabilizing PPARγ to inhibit NF-κB signalling pathway.

Synovial macrophage polarization and inflammation are essential for osteoarthritis (OA) development, yet the molecular mechanisms and regulation responsible for the pathogenesis are still poorly understood. Here, we report that pseudolaric acid B (PAB) attenuated articular cartilage degeneration and synovitis during OA. PAB, a diterpene acid, specifically inhibited NF-κB signalling and reduced the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which further decreased M1 polarization and vessel formation. We further provide in vivo and in vitro evidences that PAB suppressed NF-κB signalling by stabilizing PPARγ. Using PPARγ antagonist could abolish anti-inflammatory effect of PAB and rescue the activation of NF-κB signalling during OA. Our findings identify a previously unrecognized role of PAB in the regulation of OA and provide mechanisms by which PAB regulates NF-κB signalling through PPARγ, which further suggest targeting synovial inflammation or inhibiting vessel formation at early stage could be an effective preventive strategy for OA.

Advances in tissue engineering of vasculature through three-dimensional bioprinting.

BACKGROUND: A significant challenge facing tissue engineering is the fabrication of vasculature constructs which contains vascularized tissue constructs to recapitulate viable, complex and functional organs or tissues, and free-standing vascular structures potentially providing clinical applications in the future. Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting has emerged as a promising technology, possessing a number of merits that other conventional biofabrication methods do not have. Over the last decade, 3D bioprinting has contributed a variety of techniques and strategies to generate both vascularized tissue constructs and free-standing vascular structures. RESULTS: This review focuses on different strategies to print two kinds of vasculature constructs, namely vascularized tissue constructs and vessel-like tubular structures, highlighting the feasibility and shortcoming of the current methods for vasculature constructs fabrication. Generally, both direct printing and indirect printing can be employed in vascularized tissue engineering. Direct printing allows for structural fabrication with synchronous cell seeding, while indirect printing is more effective in generating complex architecture. During the fabrication process, 3D bioprinting techniques including extrusion bioprinting, inkjet bioprinting and light-assisted bioprinting should be selectively implemented to exert advantages and obtain the desirable tissue structure. Also, appropriate cells and biomaterials matter a lot to match various bioprinting techniques and thus achieve successful fabrication of specific vasculature constructs. CONCLUSION: The 3D bioprinting has been developed to help provide various fabrication techniques, devoting to producing structurally stable, physiologically relevant, and biologically appealing constructs. However, although the optimization of biomaterials and innovation of printing strategies may improve the fabricated vessel-like structures, 3D bioprinting is still in the infant period and has a great gap between in vitro trials and in vivo applications. The article reviews the present achievement of 3D bioprinting in generating vasculature constructs and also provides perspectives on future directions of advanced vasculature constructs fabrication.

Cdc42 has important roles in postnatal angiogenesis and vasculature formation.

Cdc42, a Rho family low molecular weight G protein, has important roles in various cell functions, including cytoskeletal rearrangement, cell adhesion and cell proliferation and differentiation. To investigate the involvement of Cdc42 in the activities of vascular endothelial cells, we generated Cdc42 conditional knockout mice in which Cdc42 was time -specifically deficient in vascular endothelial cells (Cdc42 â€‹fl/fl; VE-Cad CreERT: Cdc42 cKO). When the Cdc42 gene was deleted after birth, Cdc42 cKO mice were smaller than the control mice, and died between postnatal day 8 (P8) and P10. Necropsy findings confirmed that these mice had various pathological aberrances in the vessels of most organs, such as blood flow congestion and blood cell invasion. Electron microscopic observations also revealed that capillary endothelial cells were detached from the basement membrane as well as phagocytosis of dead endothelial cells induced by macrophages. Moreover, vascular sprouting from aortic rings induced by VEGF-A was diminished in samples from the Cdc42 cKO mice because of an endothelial cell proliferation defect. These results suggest that Cdc42 in vascular endothelial cells has important roles in blood vessel formation after birth.

Cre mRNA Is Not Transferred by EVs from Endothelial and Adipose-Derived Stromal/Stem Cells during Vascular Network Formation.

Coculture systems employing adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (ASC) and endothelial cells (EC) represent a widely used technique to model vascularization. Within this system, cell-cell communication is crucial for the achievement of functional vascular network formation. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have recently emerged as key players in cell communication by transferring bioactive molecules between cells. In this study we aimed to address the role of EVs in ASC/EC cocultures by discriminating between cells, which have received functional EV cargo from cells that have not. Therefore, we employed the Cre-loxP system, which is based on donor cells expressing the Cre recombinase, whose mRNA was previously shown to be packaged into EVs and reporter cells containing a construct of floxed dsRed upstream of the eGFP coding sequence. The evaluation of Cre induced color switch in the reporter system via EVs indicated that there is no EV-mediated RNA transmission either between EC themselves or EC and ASC. However, since Cre mRNA was not found present in EVs, it remains unclear if Cre mRNA is generally not packaged into EVs or if EVs are not taken up by the utilized cell types. Our data indicate that this technique may not be applicable to evaluate EV-mediated cell-to-cell communication in an in vitro setting using EC and ASC. Further investigations will require a functional system showing efficient and specific loading of Cre mRNA or protein into EVs.

Melanoma Associated Chitinase 3-Like 1 Promoted Endothelial Cell Activation and Immune Cell Recruitment.

Chitinase 3-like 1 (CHI3L1) is an enzymatically inactive mammalian chitinase that is associated with tumor inflammation. Previous research indicated that CHI3L1 is able to interact with different extracellular matrix components, such as heparan sulfate. In the present work, we investigated whether the interaction of CHI3L1 with the extracellular matrix of melanoma cells can trigger an inflammatory activation of endothelial cells. The analysis of the melanoma cell secretome indicated that CHI3L1 increases the abundance of various cytokines, such as CC-chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2), and growth factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A). Using a solid-phase binding assay, we found that heparan sulfate-bound VEGF-A and CCL2 were displaced by recombinant CHI3L1 in a dose-dependent manner. Microfluidic experiments indicated that the CHI3L1 altered melanoma cell secretome promoted immune cell recruitment to the vascular endothelium. In line with the elevated VEGF-A levels, CHI3L1 was also able to promote angiogenesis through the release of extracellular matrix-bound pro-angiogenic factors. In conclusion, we showed that CHI3L1 is able to affect the tumor cell secretome, which in turn can regulate immune cell recruitment and blood vessel formation. Accordingly, our data suggest that the molecular targeting of CHI3L1 in the course of cancer immunotherapies can tune patients' response and antitumoral inflammation.

Endothelial struts enable the generation of large lumenized blood vessels de novo.

De novo blood vessel formation occurs through coalescence of endothelial cells (ECs) into a cord-like structure, followed by lumenization either through cell-1-3 or cord-hollowing4-7. Vessels generated in this manner are restricted in diameter to one or two ECs, and these models fail to explain how vasculogenesis can form large-diameter vessels. Here, we describe a model for large vessel formation that does not require a cord-like structure or a hollowing step. In this model, ECs coalesce into a network of struts in the future lumen of the vessel, a process dependent upon bone morphogenetic protein signalling. The vessel wall forms around this network and consists initially of only a few patches of ECs. To withstand external forces and to maintain the shape of the vessel, strut formation traps erythrocytes into compartments to form a rigid structure. Struts gradually prune and ECs from struts migrate into and become part of the vessel wall. Experimental severing of struts resulted in vessel collapse, disturbed blood flow and remodelling defects, demonstrating that struts enable the patency of large vessels during their formation.

In-vivo 3D imaging of Zebrafish's intersegmental vessel development by a bi-directional light-sheet illumination microscope.

Precise quantification of vascular developments in Zebrafish requires continuous in-vivo 3D imaging. Here we employed a bi-directional light-sheet illumination microscope to characterize the development process of Zebrafish's intersegmental vessels. A Virtual Reality-based method was used to measure the lengths of intersegmental vessels (ISVs). The quantified growth rates of typical ISVs can be plotted, and unusual growth of some specific vessels was also observed.

Relationship between the Plasma Fibulin-1 Levels, Pulse Wave Velocity, and Vascular Age in Asymptomatic Hyperuricemia.

Fibulin-1 (FBLN-1), an elastin-associated extracellular matrix protein, has been found in blood and may play a role in the pathophysiological processes leading to cardiovascular disease (CVD). We aimed to investigate the relationship between fibulin-1 levels and the risk of CVD by evaluating vascular age derived from the Framingham Heart Study and brachial-ankle Pulse Wave Velocity (baPWV) in patients with asymptomatic hyperuricemia (AHU). In total, 66 patients with AHU and 66 gender- and age-matched healthy individuals were enrolled. The plasma fibulin-1 levels were measured by immunochemistry. Patients with AHU presented significantly higher vascular age [median (interquartile range): 54 (22) vs. 48 (14) years, P=0.01] and baPWV [mean±SD: 1373±223 vs. 1291±177 cm/s, P=0.02] than the healthy subjects; however, no significant difference was observed in the plasma fibulin-1 level between the patients with AHU and healthy subjects [median (interquartile range): 4018 (3838) vs. 3099 (3405) ng/mL, P=0.31]. A correlation between fibulin-1 levels and baPWV was observed only in patients with AHU (r=0.29, P=0.02); and there was also a suggestively statistically significant correlation between fibulin-1 levels and vascular age (r=0.22, P=0.08). However, these associations were rendered insignificant after adjustments for potential confounders. In healthy subjects, no correlation was observed between fibulin-1 levels and CVD risk. This study reveals that plasma fibulin-1 levels may reflect the CVD risk in patients with AHU, but the relationship is not robust.