The Unexpected Brains Behind Blood Vessel Growth

摘要

Two of the hottest fields in developmental biology—neural guidance and angiogenesis— are beginning to merge as scientists find that similar proteins control both processes Whether in San Francisco or Singapore, almost everyone knows what the colorson a traffic light mean. But how did red, green, and yellow get chosen? It turns out railroad signals were already using these colors to guide trains. And the railroad industry may have gotten the idea from the electrical industry, which apparently usedred to show that a motor was stopped and green to signal that it was running. When something works, why not use it more than once? Evolution follows that principle too, as researchers studying the growth of blood vessels and nervous systems are beginningto appreciate. Scientists probing the development of the veins, arteries, and capillaries that guide nutrients and oxygen to cells are finding more and more evidence that the genes and proteins that were first discovered to guide growing nerve cells also direct blood vessels.