Harnessing systems biology approaches to engineer functional microvascular networks

Microvascular remodeling is a complex process that includes many cell types and molecular signals. Despite a continued growth in the understanding of signaling pathways involved in the formation and maturation of new blood vessels, approximately half of all compounds entering clinical trials will fail, resulting in the loss of much time, money, and resources. Most pro-angiogenic clinical trials to date have focused on increasing neovascularization via the delivery of a single growth factor or gene. Alternatively, a focus on the concerted regulation of whole networks of genes may lead to greater insight into the underlying physiology since the coordinated response is greater than the sum of its parts. Systems biology offers a comprehensive network view of the processes of angiogenesis and arteriogenesis that might enable the prediction of drug targets and whether or not activation of the targets elicits the desired outcome. Systems biology integrates complex biological data from a variety of experimental sources (-omics) and analyzes how the interactions of the system components can give rise to the function and behavior of that system. This review focuses on how systems biology approaches have been applied to microvascular growth and remodeling, and how network analysis tools can be utilized to aid novel pro-angiogenic drug discovery.

Title	Harnessing systems biology approaches to engineer functional microvascular networks
Creator	Sefcik Anderson, Lauren
	Botchwey, E. A.
	Wilson, J. L.
	Papin, J. A.
Publisher	Tissue Engineering Part B
Academic Department	Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
Division	Engineering
Organization	Lafayette College
Date Issued	June 2010
Date Available	2011-02-07T19:28:58Z
Type	Article
Language	English
Bibliographic Citation	Sefcik Anderson, L., et. al. (2010) "Harnessing systems biology approaches to engineer functional microvascular networks." Tissue Engineering Part B 16 (3): 361-370.
Standard Identifier	Handle 10385/799
Standard Identifier	DOI 10.1089/ten.teb.2009.0611
Permalink	http://hdl.handle.net/10385/799
Rights Statement	In Copyright
Rights Holders	Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.