Improving our understanding of how RNA controls blood vessel growth

Control of endothelial cell commitment and specification by long non-coding RNA (Joint funding with BIRAX)

BHF Professor Andrew Baker from the University of Edinburgh is working with Dr Igor Ulitsky from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel to identify what controls how blood vessel cells form and function, and how they can regenerate and restore blood supply to damaged tissue. Cells that line the inside of blood vessels are called endothelial cells. They direct new blood vessel growth, which is especially important for people with reduced blood flow to their heart or limbs. To develop treatments that could boost blood vessel growth, we first need to understand how new blood vessels in the body are made. Our DNA is a set of instructions that cells use to make proteins; a template for RNA, a molecule that usually sits in the pathway between DNA and protein. But not all RNAs lead to protein formation. They might instead control a biological function within a cell. Professor Baker and Dr Ulitsky will study a group of RNAs in blood vessel cells that don’t make proteins - IncRNAs – to try and work out how they control the function of endothelial cells. They will study which RNAs are involved in endothelial cell formation, how the levels of different RNAs change and which processes this might affect. They will manipulate the lncRNAs to see if this can boost the formation of new blood vessels in a model of blocked limb arteries. This research will reveal if certain lncRNAs can be used to regenerate blood vessels in patients with heart and circulatory disease.