Exploring molecular regulation of angiogenesis and vascular homeostasis
What We Do
The laboratory investigates the mechanisms behind the formation of vascular tumors and anomalies. Its additional focus is understanding vascular resilience and dissecting the molecular mechanisms behind response to stressors, including aging. Scroll through to learn about our most recently published discoveries in vascular biology.
Sunshine Cell Rep 2024
How Jagg1 (JAG1) expression is compartmentalized in the vascular plexus remains unclear. Our findings reveal an important feedforward loop whereby vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) stimulates zinc-finger protein 36 (ZFP36), consequently suppressing Jag1 to enable adequate levels of Notch signaling during sprouting angiogenesis.
Romay JCI 2024
A concrete understanding of how aging affects the brain vasculature remains vastly incomplete. Here, we demonstrate that aging is associated with a marked decline in Notch3 signaling in both murine and human brain vessels. To clarify the consequences of Notch3 loss in the brain vasculature …read more
Hernandez Nat Cardiovasc Res 2022
The emergence of aortic myeloid cells is developmentally triggered as part of natural hemodynamic changes at birth, resulting in localized disturbed flow dynamics. Genetic ablation of this aortic myeloid resident population promotes fibrin deposition and microthrombus formation, clarifying its function as a critical regulator of hemostasis.
Hilfenhaus JCB 2018
The guanosine nucleotide exchange factor Vav3 promotes high-resistance barrier function to microvascular endothelium. Ectopic expression of Vav3 in large artery and brain endothelial cells significantly enhance barrier resistance and cortical rearrangement of actin cytoskeleton, a process that requires interaction with Rap1.
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