Building the house around the plumbing*This article is a US Government work, and as such, is in the public domain in the United States of America.

摘要

Signaling between growing blood vessels and the tissues that they innervate has traditionally been viewed as a one-way conversation, with organs and tissues supplying important cues for the growth and anatomical patterning of the blood vessels supplying them, but not vice-versa. Two recent papers1,2 now provide evidence that blood vessels can have an important role in promoting the assembly of organs and tissues. These papers show that proper formation of the pancreas1 and liver2 and induction of endocrine and hepatic cell types in these endodermal organs requires inductive signals from blood vessels. BioEssays 24:397-400, 2002. Published 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.