How to Plumb a Pisces: Understanding Vascular Development and Disease Using Zebrafish Embryos

Abstract

Our vasculature plays diverse and critical roles in homeostasis and disease. In recent decades, the use of zebrafish has driven our understanding of vascular development into new areas, identifying new genes and mechanisms controlling vessel formation and allowing unprecedented observation of the cellular and molecular events that shape the developing vasculature. Here, we highlight key mechanisms controlling formation of the zebrafish vasculature and investigate how knowledge from this highly tractable model system has informed our understanding of vascular disease in humans.

Keywords: angiogenesis; blood vessel; lymphangiogenesis; lymphatic; vascular; vascular disease; vasculogenesis; zebrafish.