Browsing by Author "Paech, Jennifer Bianca"

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally. Especially pathological cardiac hypertrophy can be a trigger for severe pathological conditions, such as congestive heart failure. Previously, overexpression of vascular endothelial growth factor B (VEGF-B) in cardiomyocytes has been shown to lead to cardiac hypertrophy, but in a reversible, physiological way. Furthermore, VEGF-B overexpression leads to significant expansion of the coronary vascular tree. This study compares transcriptomics of postnatal and adult murine cardiac endothelial cells (ECs) and examines the transcriptional changes in response to VEGF-B transgene, plus the effect of the VEGF-B transgene on recovery of the murine cardiac ECs from myocardial infarction (MI). I analyzed isolated ECs from VEGF-B transgenic and AAV-VEGF-B transduced mice with single-cell RNA sequencing. The markers used for identification of the cell types applies to all experimental groups, although the proportions of cells differ among the conditions. The myocardial VEGF-B transgene promotes EC proliferation during development and boosts endothelial proliferation also in adult mice both in physiological conditions and after MI. Trajectory analysis indicates that ECs from the VEGF-B treated mice follow a distinct trajectory to enter the cell cycle after MI. These results suggest VEGF-B gene therapy as a new tool for coronary vessel remodeling, which could open new perspectives in the prevention and treatment of myocardial infarction.