Vascular endothelial growth factor-induced neovascularization rescues cardiac function but not adverse remodeling at advanced ischemic heart disease.

Objective: Proangiogenic therapy is a promising avenue for the treatment for chronic heart failure and a potentially powerful modality for reversing adverse cardiac remodeling. There is a concern, however, that adverse remodeling might enter an irreversible stage, and become refractory to treatments. The present study aims to determine whether neovascularization therapy is feasible at end stage heart failure and its capacity to reverse adverse cardiac remodeling during progressive disease stages.

Vascular endothelial growth factor and vascular homeostasis.

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is the angiogenic factor promoting and orchestrating most, if not all, processes of neovascularization taking place in the embryo and the adult. VEGF is also required to sustain newly formed vessels and plays additional multiple roles in the maintenance and function of certain mature vascular beds. Correspondingly, perturbations in VEGF signaling may impact organ homeostasis in multiple ways.

Blood vessels restrain pancreas branching, differentiation and growth.

How organ size and form are controlled during development is a major question in biology. Blood vessels have been shown to be essential for early development of the liver and pancreas, and are fundamental to normal and pathological tissue growth. Here, we report that, surprisingly, non-nutritional signals from blood vessels act to restrain pancreas growth.

A perfusion-independent role of blood vessels in determining branching stereotypy of lung airways.

Blood vessels have been shown to play perfusion-independent roles in organogenesis. Here, we examined whether blood vessels determine branching stereotypy of the mouse lung airways in which coordinated branching of epithelial and vascular tubes culminates in their co-alignment. Using different ablative strategies to eliminate the lung vasculature, both in vivo and in lung explants, we show that proximity to the vasculature is indeed essential for patterning airway branching.

Transgenic system for conditional induction and rescue of chronic myocardial hibernation provides insights into genomic programs of hibernation.

A key energy-saving adaptation to chronic hypoxia that enables cardiomyocytes to withstand severe ischemic insults is hibernation, i.e., a reversible arrest of contractile function.