eLife (Feb 2016)

Temporal modulation of collective cell behavior controls vascular network topology

  • Esther Kur,
  • Jiha Kim,
  • Aleksandra Tata,
  • Cesar H Comin,
  • Kyle I Harrington,
  • Luciano da F Costa,
  • Katie Bentley,
  • Chenghua Gu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.13212
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5

Abstract

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Vascular network density determines the amount of oxygen and nutrients delivered to host tissues, but how the vast diversity of densities is generated is unknown. Reiterations of endothelial-tip-cell selection, sprout extension and anastomosis are the basis for vascular network generation, a process governed by the VEGF/Notch feedback loop. Here, we find that temporal regulation of this feedback loop, a previously unexplored dimension, is the key mechanism to determine vascular density. Iterating between computational modeling and in vivo live imaging, we demonstrate that the rate of tip-cell selection determines the length of linear sprout extension at the expense of branching, dictating network density. We provide the first example of a host tissue-derived signal (Semaphorin3E-Plexin-D1) that accelerates tip cell selection rate, yielding a dense network. We propose that temporal regulation of this critical, iterative aspect of network formation could be a general mechanism, and additional temporal regulators may exist to sculpt vascular topology.

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