Defining the role of lymphatic vessels in wound healing

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Project summary The vasculature of the skin behaves as network carrying factors which maintain skin homeostasis and modify the immune response when injury or damage occurs. When the vasculature becomes dysfunctional processes like skin wound healing are hindered. The vasculature consists of blood vessels and lymphatic vessels interacting to provide circulation and cells crucial for skin health. Vascular dysfunction can be characterized by leavy blood vessels, decreased immune cell infiltrate at the site of injury, and/or excessive blood vessel development. My laboratory recently described a role of lymphatic vessels, tasked with shuttling leukocytes and lymph throughout the skin, in mediating a hypervascular phenotype, coupled with fibrosis, after skin injury. Lymphatic vessels have been reported as instrumental for skin repair however the precise function and mechanism of action are not well characterized. We suggest exploration of not only lymphatic vessel function within the skin but also their interaction with blood vessels will allow for a conceptualization of how wound healing can be rendered chronic and unsuccessful and further, how this shift towards an erratic vasculature mediates the formation of fibrotic, scarred tissue and lymphedema.