Local angiogenic interplay of Vegfc/d and Vegfa controls brain region-specific emergence of fenestrated capillaries
- Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, United States
- Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
- Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Abstract
Fenestrated and blood-brain barrier (BBB)-forming endothelial cells constitute major brain capillaries, and this vascular heterogeneity is crucial for region-specific neural function and brain homeostasis. How these capillary types emerge in a brain region-specific manner and subsequently establish intra-brain vascular heterogeneity remains unclear. Here, we performed a comparative analysis of vascularization across the zebrafish choroid plexuses (CPs), circumventricular organs (CVOs), and retinal choroid, and show common angiogenic mechanisms critical for fenestrated brain capillary formation. We found that zebrafish deficient for Gpr124, Reck, or Wnt7aa exhibit severely-impaired BBB angiogenesis without any apparent defect in fenestrated capillary formation in the CPs, CVOs, and retinal choroid. Conversely, genetic loss of various Vegf combinations caused significant disruptions in Wnt7/Gpr124/Reck signaling-independent vascularization of these organs. The phenotypic variation and specificity revealed heterogeneous endothelial requirements for Vegfs-dependent angiogenesis during CP and CVO vascularization, identifying unexpected interplay of Vegfc/d and Vegfa in this process. Mechanistically, expression analysis and paracrine activity-deficient vegfc mutant characterization suggest that endothelial cells and non-neuronal specialized cell types present in the CPs and CVOs are major sources of Vegfs responsible for regionally-restricted angiogenic interplay. Thus, brain region-specific presentations and interplay of Vegfc/d and Vegfa control emergence of fenestrated capillaries, providing insight into the mechanisms driving intra-brain vascular heterogeneity and fenestrated vessel formation in other organs.
Data availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting file; Source data files have been provided for Figures 9 and 10.
Article and author information
Author details
Benoit Vanhollebeke
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01 NS117510)
- Ryota L Matsuoka
Cleveland Clinic Foundation
- Ryota L Matsuoka
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All zebrafish husbandry was performed under standard conditions in accordance with institutional and national ethical and animal welfare guidelines. All zebrafish work was approved by the Cleveland Clinic's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee under the protocol number 00002684. Every effort was made to minimize suffering and distress of the animals used throughout this study.
Copyright
© 2023, Parab et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Local angiogenic interplay of Vegfc/d and Vegfa controls brain region-specific emergence of fenestrated capillaries
eLife 12:e86066.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.86066
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