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International Immunology May 2020The vast blood-vessel network of the circulatory system is crucial for maintaining bodily homeostasis, delivering essential molecules and blood cells, and removing waste... (Review)
Review
The vast blood-vessel network of the circulatory system is crucial for maintaining bodily homeostasis, delivering essential molecules and blood cells, and removing waste products. Blood-vessel dysfunction and dysregulation of new blood-vessel formation are related to the onset and progression of many diseases including cancer, ischemic disease, inflammation and immune disorders. Endothelial cells (ECs) are fundamental components of blood vessels and their proliferation is essential for new vessel formation, making them good therapeutic targets for regulating the latter. New blood-vessel formation occurs by vasculogenesis and angiogenesis during development. Induction of ECs termed tip, stalk and phalanx cells by interactions between vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) and its receptors (VEGFR1-3) and between Notch and Delta-like Notch ligands (DLLs) is crucial for regulation of angiogenesis. Although the importance of angiogenesis is unequivocal in the adult, vasculogenesis effected by endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) may also contribute to post-natal vessel formation. However, the definition of these cells is ambiguous and they include several distinct cell types under the simple classification of 'EPC'. Furthermore, recent evidence indicates that ECs within the intima show clonal expansion in some situations and that they may harbor vascular-resident endothelial stem cells. In this article, we summarize recent knowledge on vascular development and new blood-vessel formation in the adult. We also introduce concepts of EC heterogeneity and EC clonal expansion, referring to our own recent findings.
Topics: Animals; Blood Vessels; Cell Proliferation; Endothelial Cells; Humans; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A
PubMed: 31996897
DOI: 10.1093/intimm/dxaa008 -
Computer Methods and Programs in... May 2018Blood vessel segmentation is a topic of high interest in medical image analysis since the analysis of vessels is crucial for diagnosis, treatment planning and execution,... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
Blood vessel segmentation is a topic of high interest in medical image analysis since the analysis of vessels is crucial for diagnosis, treatment planning and execution, and evaluation of clinical outcomes in different fields, including laryngology, neurosurgery and ophthalmology. Automatic or semi-automatic vessel segmentation can support clinicians in performing these tasks. Different medical imaging techniques are currently used in clinical practice and an appropriate choice of the segmentation algorithm is mandatory to deal with the adopted imaging technique characteristics (e.g. resolution, noise and vessel contrast).
OBJECTIVE
This paper aims at reviewing the most recent and innovative blood vessel segmentation algorithms. Among the algorithms and approaches considered, we deeply investigated the most novel blood vessel segmentation including machine learning, deformable model, and tracking-based approaches.
METHODS
This paper analyzes more than 100 articles focused on blood vessel segmentation methods. For each analyzed approach, summary tables are presented reporting imaging technique used, anatomical region and performance measures employed. Benefits and disadvantages of each method are highlighted.
DISCUSSION
Despite the constant progress and efforts addressed in the field, several issues still need to be overcome. A relevant limitation consists in the segmentation of pathological vessels. Unfortunately, not consistent research effort has been addressed to this issue yet. Research is needed since some of the main assumptions made for healthy vessels (such as linearity and circular cross-section) do not hold in pathological tissues, which on the other hand require new vessel model formulations. Moreover, image intensity drops, noise and low contrast still represent an important obstacle for the achievement of a high-quality enhancement. This is particularly true for optical imaging, where the image quality is usually lower in terms of noise and contrast with respect to magnetic resonance and computer tomography angiography.
CONCLUSION
No single segmentation approach is suitable for all the different anatomical region or imaging modalities, thus the primary goal of this review was to provide an up to date source of information about the state of the art of the vessel segmentation algorithms so that the most suitable methods can be chosen according to the specific task.
Topics: Algorithms; Blood Vessels; Datasets as Topic; Evaluation Studies as Topic; Humans; Image Enhancement; Machine Learning; Models, Anatomic
PubMed: 29544791
DOI: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2018.02.001 -
Nature Oct 2022
Topics: Blood Vessels; Humans; Neoplasms; Neovascularization, Pathologic
PubMed: 36198785
DOI: 10.1038/d41586-022-03136-2 -
Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in... Feb 2018Over the past 40 years, remarkable advances have been made in our understanding of successful blood vessel regeneration, starting with the failures of early... (Review)
Review
Over the past 40 years, remarkable advances have been made in our understanding of successful blood vessel regeneration, starting with the failures of early tissue-engineered vascular grafts designed using isolated components or molecules, such as collagen gels. The vascular tissue engineers are today better educated and have steered ongoing research developments toward clinical developments of more complete vascular grafts that replicate the multitude of specialized arterial aspects required for function.
Topics: Allografts; Animals; Blood Vessel Prosthesis; Blood Vessels; Heterografts; Humans; Tissue Engineering; Tissue Scaffolds
PubMed: 28348177
DOI: 10.1101/cshperspect.a025742 -
Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy Apr 2014Cardiovascular disease (CVD) affecting blood vessel function is a leading cause of death around the world. A common treatment option to replace the diseased blood... (Review)
Review
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) affecting blood vessel function is a leading cause of death around the world. A common treatment option to replace the diseased blood vessels is vascular grafting using the patient's own blood vessels. However, patients with CVD are usually lacking vessels for grafting. Recent advances in tissue engineering are now providing alternatives to autologous vascular grafts in the form of tissue-engineered blood vessels (TEBVs). In this review, we will describe the use of different scaffolding systems, cell sources and conditioning approaches for creating fully functional blood vessels. Additionally, we will present the methods used for assessing TEBV functions and describe preclinical and clinical trials for TEBV. Although the early results were encouraging, current designs of TEBV still fall short as a viable clinical option. Implementing the current knowledge in vascular development can lead to improved fabrication and function of TEBV and hasten clinical translation.
Topics: Animals; Bioprosthesis; Blood Vessel Prosthesis; Blood Vessels; Clinical Trials as Topic; Humans; Tissue Engineering
PubMed: 24460430
DOI: 10.1517/14712598.2014.880419 -
Current Topics in Developmental Biology 2004
Review
Topics: Aging; Animals; Blood Vessels; Cell Adhesion; Epithelial Cells; Humans; Signal Transduction
PubMed: 15522737
DOI: 10.1016/S0070-2153(04)62001-1 -
Journal of Pharmacological and... 2000It is the function of the vascular system, through a complex network of arteries, capillaries and veins, to maintain cellular homeostasis. As research scientists it is... (Review)
Review
It is the function of the vascular system, through a complex network of arteries, capillaries and veins, to maintain cellular homeostasis. As research scientists it is necessary to understand not only some of the basic properties of the blood vessel itself but also how these vessels differ in cellular and physiological function. This review provides an overview of the basic physiological and pharmacological tenets of blood vessels. It also briefly describes in vivo and in vitro methods used in the measurement of blood flow and blood vessel function. It is hoped that this review will provide readers of this focussed issue of the Journal of Pharmacological & Toxicological Methods with an appreciation of the many mechanical, electrical and biochemical methodologies described within this issue.
Topics: Animals; Blood Vessels; Endothelium, Vascular; Humans; Muscle, Smooth, Vascular; Regional Blood Flow
PubMed: 11325577
DOI: 10.1016/s1056-8719(00)00125-8 -
Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton,... 2021Lightsheet microscopy is a form of fluorescence microscopy that can be used to visualize specimen with high resolution, a large depth-of-field, and minimal photodamage...
Lightsheet microscopy is a form of fluorescence microscopy that can be used to visualize specimen with high resolution, a large depth-of-field, and minimal photodamage and photobleaching as compared to traditional confocal microscopy. As this technology becomes much more readily available, it will be useful in revealing new findings in the cardiovascular development field that may be hidden or difficult to image. In this manuscript, we describe an approach for mounting and culturing postimplantation mouse embryos to visualize blood vessel development with a lightsheet microscope.
Topics: Angiography; Animals; Blood Vessels; Culture Media; Culture Techniques; Dissection; Embryo, Mammalian; Embryonic Development; Mice; Mice, Transgenic; Microscopy, Confocal; Microscopy, Fluorescence; Neovascularization, Physiologic
PubMed: 34331247
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1480-8_11 -
Postgraduate Medical Journal Sep 1953
Topics: Blood Vessels; Humans; Transplantation; Vascular Grafting
PubMed: 13088512
DOI: 10.1136/pgmj.29.335.462 -
Medical Image Analysis Jan 2017Endovascular interventions can benefit from interactive simulation in their training phase but also during pre-operative and intra-operative phases if simulation...
Endovascular interventions can benefit from interactive simulation in their training phase but also during pre-operative and intra-operative phases if simulation scenarios are based on patient data. A key feature in this context is the ability to extract, from patient images, models of blood vessels that impede neither the realism nor the performance of simulation. This paper addresses both the segmentation and reconstruction of the vasculature from 3D Rotational Angiography data, and adapted to simulation: An original tracking algorithm is proposed to segment the vessel tree while filtering points extracted at the vessel surface in the vicinity of each point on the centerline; then an automatic procedure is described to reconstruct each local unstructured point set as a skeleton-based implicit surface (blobby model). The output of successively applying both algorithms is a new model of vasculature as a tree of local implicit models. The segmentation algorithm is compared with Multiple Hypothesis Testing (MHT) algorithm (Friman et al., 2010) on patient data, showing its greater ability to track blood vessels. The reconstruction algorithm is evaluated on both synthetic and patient data and demonstrate its ability to fit points with a subvoxel precision. Various tests are also reported where our model is used to simulate catheter navigation in interventional neuroradiology. An excellent realism, and much lower computational costs are reported when compared to triangular mesh surface models.
Topics: Algorithms; Angiography; Blood Vessels; Computer Simulation; Humans; Imaging, Three-Dimensional; Neurology; Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted
PubMed: 27788384
DOI: 10.1016/j.media.2016.10.003