Now in our 13th year of bringing you beautiful imagery from biomedical science every day

Search the archive of over 4000 images

Circulatory Signposts
07 July 2015

Circulatory Signposts

During an animal’s development, a growing network of blood vessels tracks the formation of new organs, to supply them with vital oxygen and nutrients. This tightly-regulated process is extremely complex, but recent work on zebrafish embryos has revealed several key signalling molecules involved in patterning the circulatory system. For example, the absence of a specific signal receptor, gpr124, causes a dramatic loss of blood vessels connected to the brain. Here are images of a developing zebrafish brain, with several layers of blood vessels represented in different colours; in the embryo without gpr124 (bottom row), there are far fewer blood vessels than in a typical embryo (top row), both by five days after fertilisation (on the left) and 11 days later (central and right-hand panels). Gpr124 is thought to be part of an important signalling cascade, helping to guide the tips of new blood vessels to the correct destinations.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Search The Archive

Submit An Image

Follow on Tumblr

Follow on Instagram

What is BPoD?

BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

Read More

BPoD is also available in Catalan at www.bpod.cat with translations by the University of Valencia.