Bloody Brains

Your brain accounts for 2% of your body weight but draws a staggering 20% of your blood supply. This requires a vast network of blood vessels, a network whose growth during development is regulated by signalling proteins, including Wnts and Frizzleds. Wnts on nerve cells bind to Frizzleds on blood vessels to direct their growth. But there are many different Wnts and Frizzleds, so how is the right match made? Researchers honed in on Reck, a protein known to enhance Wnt7 signalling, and genetically altered its gene in mice. Two mutations in particular impaired Reck’s ability to enhance Wnt7a signalling. Fluorescence microscopy of sections through mouse brains (pictured) revealed that mutants (bottom) had severe defects in the development of their blood vessels (pink) and therefore their nerve cells (green) when compared to normal mice (top). This adds one more piece to the puzzle of how our brain's blood supply develops.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image adapted from work by Chris Cho and colleagues
• Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, June 2019