Dear Colleagues,

New blood vessels are formed during embryonic development and post-natal life for physiological repair processes such as wound healing, exercise, and placenta growth. The balance between pro- and anti-angiogenic cues is essential for forming normal functional microvasculature composed of mature vessels with a hierarchical structure of arterioles, capillaries, and venules. The interaction between growing blood vessels and surrounding molecular and cellular microenvironments is a determining factor for the extent of vascular network morphogenesis. During embryonic development, the growth of the vasculature network is influenced by the extent of tissue morphogenesis, but also, it can be the trigger of tissue formation or growth and differentiation processes by producing signals in a paracrine manner. New blood vessels can also be critical to coordinating tissue repair or regeneration and preventing the deregulated, disease-promoting process. Abnormal morphogenesis of new blood vessels involves various pathophysiological processes such as cancer, ischemic vascular diseases, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. A better understanding of the molecular basis for vascular network morphogenesis will impact the development of new therapeutic strategies to target the microvasculature and angiogenesis in such diseases.

This Special Issue welcomes original research articles and review papers on all molecular and cellular aspects of vascular formation and its interrelation with tissue formation/repair.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Autocrine and paracrine signaling in vascular development
• Molecular mechanisms of vascular lumen formation
• Cell signaling paracrine in post-natal angiogenesis
• Tumor microenvironment and angiogenesis
• Ischemia-induced angiogenesis
• Vascular malformations of the brain
• Neurovascular diseases
• Molecular mechanisms of angiogenesis in exercise

Dr. Ayman Al Haj Zen
Dr. Andrea Caporali
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• angiogenesis
• lumen formation
• vascular development
• cell signaling
• paracrine signaling
• ischemia
• tumor angiogenesis
• tumor microenvironment
• vascular malformation
• exercise