Nat Commun: Study reveals 'hot spots' in lymphatic tube formation

June 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --- During embryonic development, the development of the lymphatic tube system is critical to the development of a specific protein-growth factor VEGF-CHowever, so far, we do not know the factors required for VEGF-C activation, the specific method of activation, and which cell types provide these activation factors during developmentIn a recent study, using zebrafish models, researchers revealed how the VEGF-C signaling pathway interacts during embryonic development to achieve lymphatic system developmentThe study has been published in the journal Nature Communications(Photo source:Using the latest confocal microscope, researchers found that the embryos of ADAMTS14, which lack two proteases, ADAMTS3, were unable to form lymphatic tubes due to genetic mutationsNot only did the researchers find this in zebrafish protein, but they also found it in experiments with human cell culture lines"Our observations suggest that this ability of the ADAMTS14 protein is evolutionaryly conservative." In cell transplantation experiments, researchers were able to demonstrate that certain neuronal structures and fibroblasts represent the cellular sources of protease and VEGF-C proteins"The activation of the VEGF-C protein in these locations in the embryo is sufficient to trigger the normal development of the lymphatic tube, which again demonstrates the importance of this cell group in regulating lymphatic tube production," Andreas van Impel saidThe researchers plan to conduct further research to reveal the correlation between the activity of ADAMTS14 and the development and maintenance of the mammalian lymphatic system"Since the mutation of ADAMTS3 protease causes disease in humans, it is reasonable to assume that ADAMTS14 is also a key gene that causes the occurrence of human-related diseases(BioValleyBioon.com) Source: Researchers identify 'hot spots' for developing lymphatic vessels original source: Guangxia Wang et al, Specificblast subps and neuronal structure sauer s local source of vegfc-processing components DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16552-7