Nature Communications (May 2017)

Plastic roles of pericytes in the blood–retinal barrier

  • Do Young Park,
  • Junyeop Lee,
  • Jaeryung Kim,
  • Kangsan Kim,
  • Seonpyo Hong,
  • Sangyeul Han,
  • Yoshiaki Kubota,
  • Hellmut G. Augustin,
  • Lei Ding,
  • Jin Woo Kim,
  • Hail Kim,
  • Yulong He,
  • Ralf H. Adams,
  • Gou Young Koh

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15296
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 16

Abstract

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Blood-retinal barrier (BRB) is composed of tightly connected endothelium and supporting pericytes and glia. Here, the authors show that pericytes are crucial for BRB buildup during retinal development and its maintenance in adult retinas in response to VEGF-A-induced endothelial sensitization by regulating the Tie2/FOXO1/Ang2 axis.