A study just published in Nature Cardiovascular Research investigated how the lymphatic vasculature in the neonatal mouse heart functions to retain tissue-resident macrophages which are essential for heart regeneration and how the lymphatic endothelial cell receptor, Lyve-1 maintains the survival of this pro-regenerative macrophage population following injury.
Understanding the key cellular and molecular players during heart regeneration immediately after birth, provides insight into how to reprogramme cells to promote regeneration of the adult heart following a heart attack.
This study was funded by the Wellcome, British Heart Foundation and Kennedy Trust and led by two talented graduate students in the Riley Group, Kostas Klaourakis (Wellcome 4-year PhD student) and Ben Chapman (Kennedy-funded PhD student).Both were co-supervised by Dr Joaquim Vieira at KCL with important contributions from many collaborators including provision of essential mouse models by Professors David Jackson at the WIMM and David Greaves at the Dunn School and scRNA-Seq data generated with Professor Robin Choudhury in CVMed/RDM.
Professor Paul Riley says, ‘The lymphatic vasculature has emerged as a key component of the heart’s response to injury, influencing both regeneration and maladaptive remodeling. This study now highlights the role of lymphatic clearance in shaping the composition of tissue-resident macrophages within the neonatal heart which has implications for promoting regeneration of the adult heart after a heart attack.’
Read the full paper here