Keisuke Okabe, Sakiko Kobayashi, Toru Yamada, Toshihide Kurihara, Ikue Tai-Nagara, Takeshi Miyamoto, Yoh-suke Mukouyama, Thomas N Sato, Toshio Suda, Masatsugu Ema, Yoshiaki Kubota
Vascular and nervous systems, two major networks in mammalian bodies, show a high degree of anatomical parallelism and functional crosstalk. During development, neurons guide and attract blood vessels, and consequently this parallelism is established. Here, we identified a noncanonical neurovascular interaction in eye development and disease. VEGFR2, a critical endothelial receptor for VEGF, was more abundantly expressed in retinal neurons than in endothelial cells, including endothelial tip cells. Genetic deletion of VEGFR2 in neurons caused misdirected angiogenesis toward neurons, resulting in abnormally increased vascular density around neurons...
October 23, 2014: Cell