VEGF Upregulation Slows Age-Related Capillary Density Loss, Extending Health and Life Span in Mice

The aging of the vasculature has detrimental effects on organs throughout the body. The most structurally apparent issue is that of atherosclerosis, the buildup of fatty deposits that narrow and weaken blood vessels. This ultimately leads to heart failure, stroke, heart attack, and death. A close second is the stiffening of blood vessels, due to a variety of processes such as cross-linking to reduce elasticity in blood vessel walls, and inflammation-linked disruption of the vascular smooth muscle tissue responsible for contraction and dilation of blood vessels. This stiffening causes raised blood pressure, which in turn produces pressure damage in sensitive tissue throughout the body, and raises the risk of atherosclerotic lesions rupturing. Further, and separately, the density of capillary networks is reduced with age. Hundreds of capillaries pass through every square millimeter of tissue cross-section in muscle alone, necessary to provide sufficient nutrients in an environment in which perfusion based transport is limited to a millimeter of distance at most. The dysfunctions of age cause a declining maintenance of these small scale blood vessel networks, which is thought to impair cell and tissue function by limiting the supply of nutrients. In today's research, scientists attempt to address this problem via upregulation of VEGF expression, using a gene therapy approach. VEGF levels decline with age, and this is thought to be involved in the reduction in capil...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs