One limitation of the VESGEN analysis of vascular patterning is the exclusion of the primary vascular plexus that forms over the OFT myocardium due to the difficulty in resolving the vascular structures. that vascular and neural patterning in the developing heart share dependence on tissue oxygen gradients but are not interdependent. Keywords:VEGF, coronary vasculogenesis, VESGEN, TuJ, QH-1, endothelial progenitor cells == INTRODUCTION == Diverse cell types are added to the developing embryonic vertebrate heart and organized into the complex structures of the mature heart. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are recruited via the pro-epicardial organ, organized into a vascular network at the base of the outflow tract (OFT) and remodeled into a stereotypical and highly patterned coronary arterial tree (reviewed inTomanek 2005;Reese et al. 2002;Lavine and Ornitz 2009). Neuronal precursor cells are recruited from the neural crest, also appear at the base of the cardiac OFT and similarly form stereotypical, highly branched and patterned structures within the heart (reviewed inKirby 2007). A number of factors that regulate the growth, survival and migration of these cell types have been identified, yet how arteries and nerves develop their stereotypical patterns in the heart is unknown. In the heart, as in many other organs, nerves and blood vessels are anatomically associated in what is termed the neurovascular bundle. Recent studies suggest that the congruence of neurovascular patterning in some tissues, for example the skin, is due to a trophic factor, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), released by the nerves that pattern the forming blood vessels AUT1 (Mukouyama et al. 2002). Other studies have suggested that forming vessels serve as a template and provide guidance cues to pattern the nerves (reviewed inEichmann et al. 2005). A third model is that of shared neurovascular patterning, in which arteries and nerves are controlled by similar patterning mechanisms but are independent of one another, as proposed for the embryonic chick limb (Bates et al. 2003). We have previously observed that the avian OFT myocardium is hypoxic relative to the remainder of the heart from Hamburger-Hamilton(Hamburger and Hamilton 1951) stages 2532 (ED58) (Sugishita et al. 2004b;Sugishita et al. 2004a;Sugishita et al. 2004c;Wikenheiser et al. 2006). This period overlaps the recruitment of vascular and neural precursors into the heart. This led us to hypothesize that tissue hypoxia and hypoxia-responsive signaling may play a role in the recruitment and patterning of vascular and neural elements in the developing heart. One hypoxia-responsive gene is VEGF, a key regulator of angiogenic and vasculogenic blood vessel formation through its effects on endothelial cell proliferation and Rabbit polyclonal to POLR3B migration (reviewed inCoultas et al. 2005). By injecting a peptide (VEGFtrap) that contains the VEGF-binding portion of the VEGF receptors 1 and 2 (VEGFR1 and VEGFR2), a prior study showed that VEGF AUT1 is required for coronary vasculogenesis in the quail embryo (Tomanek et al. 2006). However, in that study, it was not determined if the effect of VEGFtrap was on the recruitment of EPCs to the OFT, the formation of the vascular plexus, and/or their remodeling into a highly patterned coronary arterial tree. It was also not determined if trapping of VEGF affected neuronal patterning, and whether or not the two are interdependent. We have used a recombinant adenovirus, AdFlk1-Fc (AdFlk1), that expresses a truncated and secreted form of VEGFR2 (Flk1) and traps VEGF (Kuo et al. 2001), to test the role of VEGF in heart development. We previously showed that AdFlk1 disrupts the apoptosis-dependent remodeling of the avian cardiac OFT required for transition to a dual in-series circulation (Liu and Fisher 2008). The goals of the current study were to use AdFlk1 to define the role of VEGF in the recruitment and patterning of vascular and neural elements in the developing heart. To more directly test the role of oxygen gradients on neurovascular patterning, the effect of incubation under increased oxygen concentrations was examined. Critical to these analyses of patterning was the implementation of a computational program developed by one of us, termed VESGEN, to provide mapping and quantification of the vascular patterned structures (Parsons-Wingerter et al. 2000a;Parsons-Wingerter et al. 2000b;Parsons-Wingerter et al. 2006a;Parsons-Wingerter et AUT1 al. 2006b;McKay et al. 2008). == RESULTS == == Vascular and Neural Patterning in the Developing Heart == Cells of the endothelial.