Characterization of Lymphatic Vasculature Using Whole-Mount Immunostaining of Mouse Embryonic Dorsal Skin.

Understanding the development of the lymphatic vasculature is essential to the understanding of how these vessels function in health and disease. High-resolution imaging of histological techniques such as immunostaining of sectioned tissue provides a snapshot into lymphatic vessel morphogenesis, patterning, and organization. Whole-mount staining of embryonic dermal vasculature allows for a deeper analysis and characterization of the developing lymphatic vascular network.

Lymphatic Clearance of Immune Cells in Cardiovascular Disease.

Recent advances in our understanding of the lymphatic system, its function, development, and role in pathophysiology have changed our views on its importance. Historically thought to be solely involved in the transport of tissue fluid, lipids, and immune cells, the lymphatic system displays great heterogeneity and plasticity and is actively involved in immune cell regulation. Interference in any of these processes can be deleterious, both at the developmental and adult level.

Environmental Risk Factors for Congenital Heart Disease.

Congenital heart disease (CHD) has many forms and a wide range of causes. Clinically, it is important to understand the causes. This allows estimation of recurrence rate, guides treatment options, and may also be used to formulate public health advice to reduce the population prevalence of CHD.

Tamoxifen administration in pregnant mice can be deleterious to both mother and embryo.

Since it was introduced 20 years ago, tamoxifen-inducible genetic recombination in vivo has become a standard tool in many fields. This technique has great utility, allowing precise temporal and spatial gene recombination mediated by expression of a Cre recombinase-oestrogen receptor hormone binding domain fusion protein. It is frequently used in developmental biology, either for accurate spatio-temporal gene deletion or for lineage-labelling.

Physiological Role of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factors as Homeostatic Regulators.

The vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family of proteins are key regulators of physiological systems. Originally linked with endothelial function, they have since become understood to be principal regulators of multiple tissues, both through their actions on vascular cells, but also through direct actions on other tissue types, including epithelial cells, neurons, and the immune system. The complexity of the five members of the gene family in terms of their different splice isoforms, differential translation, and specific localizations have enabled tissues to use these potent signaling molecules to control how they function to maintain their environment.

Sensory neuronal sensitisation occurs through HMGB-1-RAGE and TRPV1 in high-glucose conditions.

Many potential causes for painful diabetic neuropathy have been proposed including actions of cytokines and growth factors. High mobility group protein B1 (HMGB1) is a RAGE (also known as AGER) agonist whose levels are increased in diabetes and that contributes to pain by modulating peripheral inflammatory responses. HMGB1 enhances nociceptive behaviour in naïve animals through an unknown mechanism.

Vascular endothelial growth factor-Ab ameliorates outer-retinal barrier and vascular dysfunction in the diabetic retina.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is one of the leading causes of blindness in the developed world. Characteristic features of DR are retinal neurodegeneration, pathological angiogenesis and breakdown of both the inner and outer retinal barriers of the retinal vasculature and retinal pigmented epithelial (RPE)-choroid respectively. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF-A), a key regulator of angiogenesis and permeability, is the target of most pharmacological interventions of DR.

Vascular endothelial growth factor-A165b prevents diabetic neuropathic pain and sensory neuronal degeneration.

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy affects up to half of diabetic patients. This neuronal damage leads to sensory disturbances, including allodynia and hyperalgesia. Many growth factors have been suggested as useful treatments for prevention of neurodegeneration, including the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family.

Noradrenaline-induced enhancement of oscillatory local field potentials in the mouse accessory olfactory bulb does not depend on disinhibition of mitral cells.

The olfactory bulb differs from other brain regions by its use of bidirectional synaptic transmission at dendrodendritic reciprocal synapses. These reciprocal synapses provide tight coupling of inhibitory feedback from granule cell interneurons to mitral cell projection neurons in the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB), at the first stage of vomeronasal processing. It has been proposed that both the mGluR2 agonist DCG-IV and noradrenaline promote mate recognition memory formation by reducing GABAergic feedback on mitral cells.