By Richard Grant Skin of heart Dr Boris Strilic / Lammert laboratory The paperB. Strilic et al., “The molecular basis of vascular lumen formation in the developing mouse aorta,” Dev Cell, 17:505–15, 2009. The findingEcki Lammert and colleagues at the University of Düsseldorf were looking to settle a debate: Do endothelial cells create blood vessels from expanding vacuoles, or do they flatten out and wrap into a hollow cylind
B. Strilic et al., “The molecular basis of vascular lumen formation in the developing mouse aorta,” Dev Cell, 17:505–15, 2009.
The finding
Ecki Lammert and colleagues at the University of Düsseldorf were looking to settle a debate: Do endothelial cells create blood vessels from expanding vacuoles, or do they flatten out and wrap into a hollow cylinder? Using powerful microscopy techniques first author Boris Strilic found that two rows of cells face each other and then push apart, while cytoskeletal proteins compress the cell—just like a toilet roll tube.
The heartache
Strilic spent 2 years searching for evidence for the vacuole hypothesis, using in vitro cell culture and an artificial support. But he couldn’t reliably tell when the cells passed through different developmental stages.
The breakthrough
Strilic developed an in vivo model by dissecting and culturing a developing...
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