New insights in how blood vessels increase their size
A new study from the group of Holger Gerhardt (VIB/KU Leuven/Cancer Research UK/ MDC/BIH Berlin) in collaboration with Katie Bentley's Lab (Cancer Research UK/BIDMC-Harvard Medical School) addresses a long standing question in the wider field of developmental biology and tissue patterning in general, and in the vascular biology field in particular: 'What are the fundamental mechanisms controlling size and shape of tubular organ systems'. Whereas the most obvious way to grow a tube in size would be to add more building blocks (by proliferating cells) to enlarge its circumference, or to increase the size of the building blocks (the cells, hypertrophy), an alternative way would be to rearrange existing building blocks. Benedetta Ubezio, Raquel Blanco and colleagues under the direction of Holger Gerhardt and Katie Bentley now show that cell rearrangement is the way blood vessels switch from making new branches to increasing the size of a branch. The researchers...