In the event of heart attacks and strokes, the blood supply must be ensured as quickly as possible in order to avoid major physical damage. Zoologists at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are using a new mechanism to enlarge the endothelial cells and thus improve blood flow within hours. The team has published the results in the journal Nature Communications [1].
The approach taken is completely new. The focus is not on increasing the number of blood vessels, but on expanding the existing arteries so that they allow more blood to pass through.
Even small changes in vessel diameter have an immense impact on blood flow. Natural processes are used to ensure that small arteries develop into larger arteries in the course of development. Typically, this development is triggered by physical processes, i.e. blood flow, and takes a relatively long time. It usually takes several days for new blood vessels to grow back after a vascular occlusion, for example. In the case of an acute heart attack, this time is not available.
In principle, two mechanisms are conceivable to widen the tubular interior of the blood vessels more quickly. One is the increased production of endothelial cells and the other is the enlargement of existing endothelial cells. In order to dilate the blood vessels after a vascular occlusion, the mechanisms should be independent of flow.
(Source KIT)
[1] Klems, A., van Rijssel, J., Ramms, Anne S., Wild, R., Hammer, J., Merkel, M., Derenbach, L. Préau, L., Hinkel, R., Suarez-Martinez, I., Schulte-Merker, S., Vidal, R., Sauer, S., Kivelä, R., Alitalo, K., Kupatt, C., van Buul, J. D., le Noble, F. (2020): The GEF Trio controls endothelial cell size and arterial remodeling downstream of Vegf signaling in both zebrafish and cell models. Nature Communications, 2020, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19008-0
Further materials:
Publication in Nature Communications:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19008-0
