RESUMO
The cardiovascular system facilitates body-wide distribution of oxygen, a vital process for the development and survival of virtually all vertebrates. However, the zebrafish, a vertebrate model organism, appears to form organs and survive mid-larval periods without a functional cardiovascular system. Despite such dispensability, it is the first organ to develop. Such enigma prompted us to hypothesize other cardiovascular functions that are important for developmental and/or physiological processes. Hence, systematic cellular ablations and functional perturbations were performed on the zebrafish cardiovascular system to gain comprehensive and body-wide understanding of such functions and to elucidate the underlying mechanisms. This approach identifies a set of organ-specific genes, each implicated for important functions. The study also unveils distinct cardiovascular mechanisms, each differentially regulating their expressions in organ-specific and oxygen-independent manners. Such mechanisms are mediated by organ-vessel interactions, circulation-dependent signals, and circulation-independent beating-heart-derived signals. A comprehensive and body-wide functional landscape of the cardiovascular system reported herein may provide clues as to why it is the first organ to develop. Furthermore, these data could serve as a resource for the study of organ development and function.
RESUMO
Development and homeostasis of organs and whole body is critically dependent on the circulatory system. In particular, the circulatory system, the railways shuttling oxygen and nutrients among various organs, is indispensible for inter-organ humoral communication. Since the modern view of the anatomy and mechanics of the circulatory system was established in 17(th) century, it has been assumed that humoral factors are carried to and from organs via vascular branches of the central arteries and veins running along the body axis. Over the past few decades, major advances have been made in understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the vascularization of organs. However, very little is known about how each organ is linked by vasculature (i.e., inter-organ vascular networks). In fact, the exact anatomy of inter-organ vascular networks has remained obscure. Herein, we report the identification of four distinct vessels, V1(LP), V2(LP), V3(LP) and V4(LP), that bridge between two organs, liver and pancreas in developing zebrafish. We found that these inter-organ vessels can be classified into two types: direct and indirect types. The direct type vessels are those that bridge between two organs via single distinct vessel, to which V1(LP) and V2(LP) vessels belong. The indirect type bridges between two organs via separate branches that emanate from a stem vessel, and V3(LP) and V4(LP) vessels belong to this type. Our finding of V1(LP), V2(LP), V3(LP) and V4(LP) vessels provides the proof of the existence of inter-organ vascular networks. These and other yet-to-be-discovered inter-organ vascular networks may facilitate the direct exchange of humoral factors that are necessary for the coordinated growth, differentiation and homeostasis of the connected organs. It is also possible that the inter-organ vessels serve as tracks for their connected organs to follow during their growth to establish their relative positions and size differences.