Spatiotemporal regulation of Rho GTPase signaling during endothelial barrier remodeling

Jeffrey Ma van der Krogt; Ivanka Je van der Meulen; Jaap D van Buul

doi:10.1016/j.cophys.2023.100676

Spatiotemporal regulation of Rho GTPase signaling during endothelial barrier remodeling

Curr Opin Physiol. 2023 Aug:34:None. doi: 10.1016/j.cophys.2023.100676.

Authors

Jeffrey Ma van der Krogt¹, Ivanka Je van der Meulen¹, Jaap D van Buul^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Ophthalmology, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
² Department of Medical Biochemistry, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
³ Leeuwenhoek Centre for Advanced Microscopy, section Molecular Cytology at Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Abstract

The vasculature is characterized by a thin cell layer that comprises the inner wall of all blood vessels, the continuous endothelium. Endothelial cells can also be found in the eye's cornea. And even though cornea and vascular endothelial (VE) cells differ from each other in structure, they both function as barriers and express similar junctional proteins such as the adherens junction VE-cadherin and tight-junction member claudin-5. How these barriers are controlled to maintain the barrier and thereby its integrity is of major interest in the development of potential therapeutic targets. An important target of endothelial barrier remodeling is the actin cytoskeleton, which is centrally coordinated by Rho GTPases that are in turn regulated by Rho-regulatory proteins. In this review, we give a brief overview of how Rho-regulatory proteins themselves are spatiotemporally regulated during the process of endothelial barrier remodeling. Additionally, we propose a roadmap for the comprehensive dissection of the Rho GTPase signaling network in its entirety.

Publication types

Review