How Blood Vessels Sense And Change In Response To Shear Stress

Main Category: Blood / Hematology
Also Included In: Anxiety / Stress
Article Date: 04 May 2006 - 2:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

Blood vessels must be able to quickly sense and adapt to increasing and decreasing rates of blood flow in order to maintain consistent blood pressure throughout the body. The endothelial cells (ECs) lining the vessel wall recognize shear stresses and transduce signals to vascular muscular cells and others in order to modify vessel shape and structure accordingly. In a study in the May issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, William Sessa and colleagues from Yale University show that the protein caveolin-1 (Cav-1) and structures known as caveolae act as sensors along the cell membrane of ECs in order to detect shear stress and help bring about appropriate reactionary remodeling of affected blood vessels.

Caveolae are distinct flask-shaped invaginated structures at the surface of ECs and consist of Cav-1 and other proteins. Sessa et al. used mice lacking Cav-1 as well as mice overexpressing Cav-1 specifically in ECs. After tying off the left carotid artery in these mice for 14 days, thereby modifying the blood flow, they found that the inside diameter of the ligated vessels was reduced in normal mice but not in Cav-1â€"deficient mice. In turn, re-expression of Cav-1 in ECs was sufficient to induce this change in Cav-1â€"deficient mice.

In an accompanying commentary, Michael Lisanti and Philippe Frank from Thomas Jefferson University further discuss the Cav-1â€"regulated signaling pathways in ECs and conclude that "these data suggest that endothelial caveolae and Cav-1 allow arteries to sense, organize, and mediate signal transduction, thereby giving arteries the ability to change their physical properties and to maintain/regulate normal blood flow in the face of altered shear stress conditions."

###

TITLE: Direct evidence for the role of caveolin-1 and caveolae in mechanotransduction and remodeling of blood vessels

AUTHOR CONTACT:
William C. Sessa
Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=27100

ACCOMPANYING COMMENTARY

TITLE: Role of caveolin-1 in the regulation of the vascular shear stress response

AUTHOR CONTACT:
Michael P. Lisanti
Kimmel Cancer Center, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=28509

Contact: Brooke Grindlinger
Journal of Clinical Investigation

• Additional
• References
• Citations