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Matrix deformations around angiogenic sprouts correlate to sprout dynamics and suggest pulling activity

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Abstract

Angiogenesis is the formation of new blood vessels from the pre-existing vasculature. It is essential for normal tissue growth and regeneration, and also plays a key role in many diseases [Carmeliet in Nat Med 9:653–660, 2003]. Cytoskeletal components have been shown to be important for angiogenic sprout initiation and maintenance [Kniazeva and Putnam in Am J Physiol 297:C179–C187, 2009] as well as endothelial cell shape control during invasion [Elliott et al. in Nat Cell Biol 17:137–147, 2015]. The exact nature of cytoskeleton-mediated forces for sprout initiation and progression, however, remains poorly understood. Questions on the importance of tip cell pulling versus stalk cell pushing are to a large extent unanswered, which among others has to do with the difficulty of quantifying and resolving those forces in time and space. We developed methods based on time-lapse confocal microscopy and image processing—further termed 4D displacement microscopy—to acquire detailed, spatially and temporally resolved extracellular matrix (ECM) deformations, indicative of cell-ECM mechanical interactions around invading sprouts. We demonstrate that matrix deformations dependent on actin-mediated force generation are spatio-temporally correlated with sprout morphological dynamics. Furthermore, sprout tips were found to exert radially pulling forces on the extracellular matrix, which were quantified by means of a computational model of collagen ECM mechanics. Protrusions from extending sprouts mostly increase their pulling forces, while retracting protrusions mainly reduce their pulling forces. Displacement microscopy analysis further unveiled a characteristic dipole-like deformation pattern along the sprout direction that was consistent among seemingly very different sprout shapes—with oppositely oriented displacements at sprout tip versus sprout base and a transition zone of negligible displacements in between. These results demonstrate that sprout-ECM interactions are dominated by pulling forces and underline the key role of tip cell pulling for sprouting angiogenesis.

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Data availability

The data and code that support the findings of this study are available within the Supplementary Figures, Table, Videos, cited references or from the corresponding author upon request. The analytical code (together with a sample data set and guidelines) and laboratory protocols are available on the website of the corresponding author: https://www.mech.kuleuven.be/en/bme/research/mechbio, by navigating to the Software and Protocols section.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for funding support from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) (doctoral fellowship to T.H., postdoctoral fellowship to C.S., FWO grants G.0821.13, G0B9615N, G087018N), from the Hercules-foundation (G0H6316N), from KU Leuven internal funding (C14/17/111) and from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007–2013)/ ERC Grant Agreement No. 308223) to H.V.O. We are grateful to Anna Rita Cantelmo, Sandra Schoors, Inge Betz and Joris Souffreau for cell culture tips and techniques. We thank Evan Claes and Tobie Martens for their contributions to the experimental microscopy setup and the live imaging.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biomechanics Section (BMe), Department of Mechanical Engineering, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Marie-Mo Vaeyens, Alvaro Jorge-Peñas, Jorge Barrasa-Fano, Tommy Heck & Hans Van Oosterwyck

  2. Department of Microbial and Molecular Systems (M2S), Centre for Membrane Separations, Adsorption, Catalysis and Spectroscopy for Sustainable Solutions (cMACS), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Christian Steuwe & Maarten Roeffaers

  3. Laboratory of Angiogenesis and Vascular Metabolism, VIB Center for Cancer Biology (CCB), VIB, Leuven, Belgium

    Peter Carmeliet

  4. Laboratory of Angiogenesis and Vascular Metabolism, Department of Oncology and Leuven Cancer Institute (LKI), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Peter Carmeliet

  5. Prometheus, Div. Skeletal Tissue Engineering, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Hans Van Oosterwyck

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  1. Marie-Mo Vaeyens
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  2. Alvaro Jorge-Peñas
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  4. Christian Steuwe
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Contributions

HVO, MMV and AJP devised the overall experimental strategy. HVO and PC provided the cell culture facilities. MR provided the microscopy facilities. MMV extended the in vitro model for 4D displacement microscopy. CS operated and extended the microscopy setup for live cell imaging. MMV and CS performed the sprouting experiments, diffusion experiments and acellular control experiments. APJ. and JBF. developed all computational algorithms for displacement and morphology quantification. MMV and AJP pre-processed the data. JBF and MMV developed code for statistical analysing. MMV analysed the data, composed the main figures and rendered all videos. JBF developed computational algorithms for strain calculations and composed the figures related to strains. TH. developed the computational model of collagen mechanics and calculated sprout forces. MMV, AJP, JBF and HVO discussed and interpreted the data. The manuscript and figure design was prepared by MMV and was finalized with input from all authors.

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Correspondence to Hans Van Oosterwyck.

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Vaeyens, MM., Jorge-Peñas, A., Barrasa-Fano, J. et al. Matrix deformations around angiogenic sprouts correlate to sprout dynamics and suggest pulling activity. Angiogenesis 23, 315–324 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10456-020-09708-y

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