Physics and mathematics help to understand the growth of new blood vessels

When new organs form during embryonic development, when a wound heals, or even during an inflammatory reaction, new blood vessels form from existing ones. The new vessels supply oxygen and nutrients to the cells, thus ensuring their survival. This process, known as angiogenesis, also occurs in the early or progressive stages of more than 50 diseases, including cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes. In fact, in many cases, angiogenesis is a key step in the transition from benign to malignant tumors. Understanding the process and developing angiogenesis inhibitor drugs have therefore become important areas of research and therapy in oncology.    

Now, a team of researchers from the University of Coimbra and the University of Granada (Spain) have used physics and mathematics to explain the mechanism by which cells in nascent vessels move, proliferate, and reorganize. Their findings pave the way for a new approach to blocking the growth of new blood vessels by altering the physical properties of cells and tissues.

By simulating the growth of new blood vessels under different physical (e.g., stiffness of the surrounding environment) and chemical (concentration of VEGF protein, which stimulates angiogenesis) conditions, the researchers concluded that in nascent vessels, the cell at the top creates tension that spreads to the cells behind it. This tension creates a force or empty space behind the top cell, triggering the proliferation of new cells. These occupy the space behind the top cell, the tension decreases, and the process begins again.

Rui Travasso, a researcher in the Physics Department at the University of Coimbra, who coordinated the study, highlights the multidisciplinary nature of the team, which consists of physicists, biomedical engineers, doctors, and biologists. "This computational model was developed based on experiments carried out by groups from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Coimbra, and demonstrated for the first time how the proliferation of the cells that make up blood vessels must depend on the mechanical stress to which the new vessel is subjected during its growth, as well as on the concentration of VEGF, in order to ensure the functionality of the new vessels."

The study was published in the open-access scientific journal PLoS Computational Biologyand was chosen for the cover of the issue. 

(Image credits: University of Coimbra)