Hemodynamics regulate spatiotemporal artery muscularization in the developing circle of Willis.

ABSTRACT: Brain arteries are wrapped by vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). Fully differentiated VSMCs are important for brain artery homeostasis, and they are lost in several cerebrovascular diseases. How healthy VSMCs differentiate on different brain arteries during development is unclear. Such knowledge will help regenerate lost VSMCs in brain arteriopathy. To answer this question, we studied the developmental muscularization of the zebrafish circle of Willis (CW) arteries, the major arterial loop that supplies blood to the brain in all vertebrates. We found that artery specification of CW endothelial cells (ECs) happens after they migrate from primitive veins to form CW arteries. VSMCs differentiate from pdgfrb+ common vascular mural cell progenitors at the time when embryo circulation

SUBMITTER: Cheng S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10705471 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature