VEGF and Notch Signaling in Angiogenesis

The vascular system is responsible for providing every cell in vertebrate organisms with a sufficient supply of oxygen and nutrients, allowing waste disposal as well as transmitting immune responses among other functions. Thus, every tissue and organ requires an efficient network of blood vessels, which can be formed de novo (vasculogenesis) or from existing vessels (angiogenesis). The onset of the latter, namely endothelial cell (EC) sprouting, is the focus of this chapter. EC sprouting starts with the differentiation of ECs into guiding tip cells and proliferative stalk cells that form the growing sprout and it ends with the so-called anastomosis, when the sprout fuses with another sprout…