Our Science
Zebrafish vasculature: A blueprint for understanding and treating human disease.
The human heart pumps 5 to 7 liters of blood around the body every minute, 20% of which serves the brain. Both require their own specialized blood and lymphatic vascular systems to meet their physiological demands. The overarching goal of our lab is to determine how this critical vasculature develops and how it regenerates after injury. We also study what functions blood and lymphatic vessels have beyond fluid transport. We are particularly interested in coronary vessels and cerebral vasculature's roles in promoting natural regenerative responses of heart and brain tissue. We primarily use the zebrafish as a discovery model, taking advantage of its ease of genetic manipulation and imaging. Advancing our understanding of the factors that drive vasculature formation and reformation, in addition to the roles of blood and lymphatic vasculature during tissue repair will highlight new concepts in regenerative medicine. Zebrafish have enhanced repair compared to mice and humans. The study of these natural processes in zebrafish can identify pathways that can be utilized to accelerate regeneration in mammals.
Blood and Lymphatic Vasculature
Understanding formation and function to develop new therapies
Coronary Vessel Development
Chemokine regulation of zebrafish coronary vasculature development
The zebrafish heart lacks coronary vessels until 1-month post-fertilization when a subset of endocardial cells sprout through the myocardium at the junction between the atrium and ventricle and form an immature coronary vessel in juvenile zebrafish. The ventricle, but not atrium, becomes vascularized by angiogenesis from this vessel. This is dependent on myocardial to endothelial cell-cell communication and we identified Cxcr4-Cxcl12 signaling as a key component of this process. Myocardial integration, coronary vascular endothelial cell specification and subtype differentiation are important processes involved in the establishment of an integrated functional coronary vascular tree. We aim to identify the developmental signals that drive these processes.
Lymphatic Vessels and Inflammation
Development of the lymphatic system and its role in heart and brain regeneration
We have demonstrated that in zebrafish the cardiac lymphatic system develops in two steps. Initially, prior to the development of coronary vessels, a lymphatic endothelial population is established on the outflow tract of the heart. Only once coronary vessel development is completed, does the lymphatic vasculature then branch down onto the ventricle along the newly established coronary arteries. In adult zebrafish, this system functions to reduce myocardial scarring during heart regeneration. The role of the lymphatic system in modulating a regenerative response has been largely under-appreciated; we are currently investigating its role post-injury and how its response is stimulated in both the heart and brain after injury.
Coronary Vessel Regeneration
Imagining Revascularization after injury
Following resection of the apex of the ventricle, the lost heart tissue regenerates, and new coronary vessels are formed. We designed and fabricated a fluidic device to culture explanted injured hearts on a live imaging microscope to continuously record the myocardial revascularization process over several days. The regenerated blood vasculature is derived from the uninjured vasculature that is proximal to the wound site. We are currently determining the process of this de novo coronary vessel formation after injury, including the cell lineages and pro-angiogenic cues that mediate it.
People
Sayali Chowdhary
Postdoctoral Fellow
B.Sc - University of Pune
Ph.D. - IISER
Nishant Mittal
Postdoctoral Fellow
B.Sc - Sastra University
Ph.D. - Keio University
Ku-Chi Tsao
Postdoctoral Fellow
B.Sc - National Taiwan Ocean University
M.S. - National Taiwan University
Ph.D. - National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and Academia Sinica
Laila Abd Elmagid
Research Assistant II (Post-bacc)
B.Sc - Cornell University
Isaac Bakis
Research Assistant (Post-bacc)
B.Sc - Vanderbilt University
Fang Zhou Yu
Clinical Research Associate
B.Sc - University of St Andrews
MBChB - Edinburgh University
Nicole Kuznetsov
Undergraduate Student
B.Sc - Hunter College
Michael Harrison
Assistant Professor
B.Sc - Edinburgh University
Ph.D. - Sheffield University
Postdoc - Children's Hospital Los Angeles, USC
Alumni
Tahreem Asghar
Undergraduate Student Researcher (2022/23)
B.Sc - Hunter College
Current: Research Assistant at Project Renewal, Inc.
Gallery
And so it begins.... Aug '21
Lab BBQ on Roosevelt Island
BBQ with the Cao lab Sept '21
Lab lunch with the Long Lab
Lab lunch to welcome Sayali!
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