Vascular permeability and pathological angiogenesis in caveolin-1-null mice.

ABSTRACT: Caveolin-1, the signature protein of endothelial cell caveolae, has many important functions in vascular cells. Caveolae are thought to be the transcellular pathway by which plasma proteins cross normal capillary endothelium, but, unexpectedly, cav-1(-/-) mice, which lack caveolae, have increased permeability to plasma albumin. The acute increase in vascular permeability induced by agents such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A occurs through venules, not capillaries, and particularly through the vesiculo-vacuolar organelle (VVO), a unique structure composed of numerous interconnecting vesicles and vacuoles that together span the venular endothelium from lumen to ablumen. Furthermore, the hyperpermeable blood vessels found in pathological angiogenesis, mother vessels, are deriv

SUBMITTER: Chang SH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2751571 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature