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Building the lymphatic drainage system

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While much is known about how blood vessels are built, the same was not true for lymph vessels. Now though, Norrmén et al. have identified two of the lead engineers that direct drainage construction in the mouse embryo.

The engineers are the transcription factors, Foxc2 and NFATc1. Foxc2 had been implicated in lymph vessel development already, but Norrmén and colleagues have now found that the factor specifically regulates a late stage of lymph development when large, valve-containing vessels arise from more primitive capillaries. The study will be published online April 27 (www.jcb.org) and will appear in the May 4 print issue of the Journal of Cell Biology.

Foxc2 built the lymph vessel valves with the help of NFATc1, which was a known heart valve engineer. Norrmén and colleagues also showed that Foxc2 and NFATc1 physically interact and that many DNA binding sites for the two transcription factors are closely linked. This latter finding generated a long list of target genes that might be controlled by the two factors.

The team now plans to investigate these targets as well as to work out the upstream molecular pathways controlling Foxc2 and NFATc1. Whatever the mechanisms, if the team can show that Foxc2 and NFATc1 also prompt lymph vessel regeneration in adults, boosting these factors could help patients with lymph drainage problems – including those that have suffered extensive tissue injuries, or have had lymph nodes removed as part of cancer treatment.

About the Journal of Cell Biology

Founded in 1955, the Journal of Cell Biology (JCB) is published by the Rockefeller University Press. All editorial decisions on manuscripts submitted are made by active scientists in conjunction with our in-house scientific editors. JCB content is posted to PubMed Central, where it is available to the public for free six months after publication. Authors retain copyright of their published works and third parties may reuse the content for non-commercial purposes under a creative commons license. For more information, please visit www.jcb.org or visit the JCB press release archive at http://www.eurekalert.org/jrnls/rupress.

Norrmén, C., et al. 2009. J. Cell Biol. doi:10.1083/jcb.200901104.

Rita Sullivan | Quelle: EurekAlert!
Weitere Informationen: www.rupress.org
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