Abstract
Blood vessels are essential for the formation and maintenance of almost all functional tissues. They play fundamental roles in the supply of oxygen and nutrition, as well as development and morphogenesis. Vascular endothelial cells are the main factor in blood vessel formation. Recently, research findings showed heterogeneity in vascular endothelial cells in different tissue/organs. Endothelial cells alter their gene expressions depending on their cell fate or angiogenic states of vascular development in normal and pathological processes. Studies on gene regulation in endothelial cells demonstrated that the activator protein 1 (AP-1) transcription factors are implicated in angiogenesis and vascular development. In particular, it has been revealed that JunB (a member of the AP-1 transcription factor family) is transiently induced in endothelial cells at the angiogenic frontier and controls them on tip cells specification during vascular development. Moreover, JunB plays a role in tissue-specific vascular maturation processes during neurovascular interaction in mouse embryonic skin and retina vasculatures. Thus, JunB appears to be a new angiogenic factor that induces endothelial cell migration and sprouting particularly in neurovascular interaction during vascular development. In this review, we discuss the recently identified role of JunB in endothelial cells and blood vessel formation.
Highlights
Blood vessels are essential for the formation and maintenance of almost all functional tissues
We focused on the activator protein 1 (AP-1) transcription factor JunB in endothelial cells in vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) signaling during angiogenesis
The loss of JunB leads to the failure of parachordal lymphangioblast and thoracic duct formation in zebrafish, indicating that JunB plays an important role in lymphatic vascular morphogenesis in zebrafish by negatively regulating JunB/miR-182/Foxo1 axis signaling
Summary
Vascular endothelial cells represent the principal cells of blood vessels in most tissues. The differences noted between vascular endothelial cells include the basic properties of arteries, veins, capillaries, tip cells, and stalk cells They include a wide variety of tissue-specific endothelial cells, such as the blood-brain barrier structure bearing cerebral blood vessels, and liver sinusoidal vascular endothelial cells that have a loose basement membrane structure. A large-scale transcriptome analysis of tissue-type vascular endothelial cells isolated from various tissues identified various tissue-specific vascular endothelial cell gene transcriptomes [3,4,5]. From the primordial vascular plexus, through a process termed remodeling, mature vessels with hierarchical structure are constructed in each tissue and organ These steps include arterial and venous specification, vessel remodeling in the coordination with neurovascular parallel alignment, and formation of functional blood vessels. We focused on the AP-1 transcription factor JunB in endothelial cells in VEGF signaling during angiogenesis
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