Vasculogenesis and angiogenesis are controlled by vascular permeability factor/vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF). Dysregulation of these physiological processes contributes to the pathologies of heart disease, cancer and stroke.... more
Vasculogenesis and angiogenesis are controlled by vascular permeability factor/vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF). Dysregulation of these physiological processes contributes to the pathologies of heart disease, cancer and stroke. Rho GTPase proteins play an integral role in VEGF-mediated formation and maintenance of blood vessels. The regulatory functions of RhoA and RhoB in vasculogenesis and angiogenesis are well defined, whereas the purpose of RhoC remains poorly understood. Here, we describe how RhoC promotes vascular homeostasis by modulating endothelial cell migration, proliferation, and permeability. RhoC stimulates proliferation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) by stabilizing nuclear β-catenin, which promotes transcription of cyclin D1 and subsequently drives cell cycle progression. RhoC negatively regulates endothelial cell migration through MAPK and downstream MLC-2 signaling and decreases vascular permeability through downregulation of the phosph...
Research Interests:
Stereotypical patterns of vascular and neuronal networks suggest that specific genetic programs tightly control path determination and, consequently, angiogenesis and axon-guidance mechanisms. Our study focuses on one member of the... more
Stereotypical patterns of vascular and neuronal networks suggest that specific genetic programs tightly control path determination and, consequently, angiogenesis and axon-guidance mechanisms. Our study focuses on one member of the roundabout family ...
Research Interests: Computational Biology, Immunohistochemistry, Gene expression, Multidisciplinary, In Situ Hybridization, and 12 moreNeuronal Network, Animals, Axon Guidance, Molecular cloning, Endothelial cell, Gene Function, Zebrafish, ENDOTHELIUM, Base Sequence, Oligonucleotides, Molecular Sequence Data, and Sequence homology
Introduction Recent studies have demonstrated the use of zebrafish to study vascular development (Chan et al., 2005; Kidd and Weinstein, 2003; Sumanas et al., 2005; Zhu et al., 2005). We have sought to discover new genes of functional... more
Introduction Recent studies have demonstrated the use of zebrafish to study vascular development (Chan et al., 2005; Kidd and Weinstein, 2003; Sumanas et al., 2005; Zhu et al., 2005). We have sought to discover new genes of functional importance in early vessel formation by a two-...