Lena Claesson Welsh
Vascular leakage and disease
Blood vessels supply the body's organs with oxygen and nutrients, which are released from the blood directly through the vessel wall. In the healthy individual, larger molecules and blood cells remain in the blood vessels. In various diseases (cancer, eye diseases, heart attack, stroke), molecules and cells leak into the tissue. This leakage leads to swelling (oedema) and inflammation that can make the disease worse. The swollen tissue also becomes more difficult to treat because drugs do not penetrate the tissue. In our project, we want to show how the leakage occurs and how it can be prevented. The project will provide new insights into how blood vessels contribute to both health and disease, and also aims to develop new drugs to slow the progression of disease and improve the treatment of cancer and eye diseases.
5 selected publications
Jin Y, Ding Y, Richards M, Kaakinen M, Giese W, Baumann E, Szymborska A, Rosa A, Nordling S, Schimmel L, Akmeric EB, Pena A, Nwadozi E, Jamalpour M, Holstein K, Sáinz-Jaspeado M, Bernabeu M, Welsh M, Gordon E, Franco CA, Vestweber D, Eklund L, Gerhardt H, Claesson-Welsh L. Tyrosine-protein kinase Yes controls endothelial junctional plasticity and barrier integrity by regulating VE-cadherin phosphorylation and endocytosis. Nat Cardiovasc Res, 2022 Dec 07
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44161-022-00195-6
Sáinz-Jaspead M, Smitm RO, Plunde O, Pawelzik S-C, Jin Y, Nordling S, Ding Y, Aspenström P, Hedlund M, Bastianello G, Ascione F, Li Q, Saygili Demir C, Fernando D, Daniel G, Franco-Cereceda A, Kroon J, Foiani M, Petrova T, Kilimann MW, Bäck M, Claesson-Welsh L. Palm delphin regulates nuclear resilience to mechanical stress in the endothelium. Circulation 2021, 16;144(20):1629-1645.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34636652/
Richards M, Pal S, Sjöberg E, Martinsson P, Martinsson P, Venkatraman L, Claesson-Welsh L. Intra-vessel heterogeneity establishes enhanced sites of macromolecular leakage downstream of laminin α5. Cell Rep. 2021 Jun 22;35(12):109268. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109268.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34161758/
Honkura N, Richards M, Lavina B, Sainz Jaspeado M, Betsholtz C, Claesson-Welsh L. Intravital imaging-based analysis tools for vessel identification and assessment of concurrent dynamic vascular events. Nat Commun, 2018; 9:2746. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30013228
Li X, Padhan N, Sjöström EO, Roche FP, Testini C, Honkura N, Sáinz-Jaspeado M, Gordon E, Bentley K, Philippides A, Tolmachev V, Dejana E, Stan RV, Vestweber D, Ballmer-Hofer K, Betsholtz C, Pietras K, Jansson L, Claesson-Welsh L. VEGFR2 pY949 signaling regulates adherens junction integrity and metastatic spread. Nat Commun, 2016; 7:11017