Vascular Niche in Lung Alveolar Development, Homeostasis, and Regeneration.

Akiko Mammoto,Tadanori Mammoto

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2019.00318

Akiko Mammoto, Tadanori Mammoto

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2019.00318

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Abstract

Endothelial cells (ECs) constitute small capillary blood vessels and contribute to delivery of nutrients, oxygen and cellular components to the local tissues, as well as to removal of carbon dioxide and waste products from the tissues. Besides these fundamental functions, accumulating evidence indicates that capillary ECs form the vascular niche. In the vascular niche, ECs reciprocally crosstalk with resident cells such as epithelial cells, mesenchymal cells, and immune cells to regulate development, homeostasis, and regeneration in various organs. Capillary ECs supply paracrine factors, called angiocrine factors, to the adjacent cells in the niche and orchestrate these processes. Although the vascular niche is anatomically and functionally well-characterized in several organs such as bone marrow and neurons, the effects of endothelial signals on other resident cells and anatomy of the vascular niche in the lung have not been well-explored. This review discusses the role of alveolar capillary ECs in the vascular niche during development, homeostasis and regeneration.

Highlights

Oxygen is an indispensable element in the human body because it is required to generate energy as a form of ATP through a process of cellular respiration in which carbon dioxide is generated as a by-product in mitochondria
Capillary endothelial cells (ECs) control specification of respiratory progenitors and early budding morphogenesis through non-specific capillary functions (Havrilak et al, 2017). These findings suggest that capillary ECs form the vascular niche with other resident cells and play important roles in the primitive stage of the lung development
Ablation of capillary blood vessels disrupts epithelial morphology (Lazarus et al, 2011), and alveolar capillaries regulate epithelial morphogenesis by generating HGF (Yamamoto et al, 2007). These findings suggest that interdependent crosstalk between epithelium, capillary ECs and mesenchyme in the niche regulates epithelial and capillary morphogenesis at this stage

Summary

Introduction

Oxygen is an indispensable element in the human body because it is required to generate energy as a form of ATP through a process of cellular respiration in which carbon dioxide is generated as a by-product in mitochondria. This review discusses the role of alveolar capillary ECs in the vascular niche during development, homeostasis and regeneration.

Results

Conclusion