Late developing cardiac lymphatic vasculature supports adult zebrafish heart function and regeneration. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • The cardiac lymphatic vascular system and its potentially critical functions in heart patients have been largely underappreciated, in part due to a lack of experimentally accessible systems. We here demonstrate that cardiac lymphatic vessels develop in young adult zebrafish, using coronary arteries to guide their expansion down the ventricle. Mechanistically, we show that in cxcr4a mutants with defective coronary artery development, cardiac lymphatic vessels fail to expand onto the ventricle. In regenerating adult zebrafish hearts the lymphatic vasculature undergoes extensive lymphangiogenesis in response to a cryoinjury. A significant defect in reducing the scar size after cryoinjury is observed in zebrafish with impaired Vegfc/Vegfr3 signaling that fail to develop intact cardiac lymphatic vessels. These results suggest that the cardiac lymphatic system can influence the regenerative potential of the myocardium.

publication date

  • November 8, 2019

Research

keywords

  • Heart
  • Lymphangiogenesis
  • Lymphatic Vessels
  • Myocardium
  • Zebrafish

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC6881116

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 85075814906

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.7554/eLife.42762

PubMed ID

  • 31702553

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 8