Mapping the lymphatic system across body scales and expertise domains: A report from the 2021 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute workshop at the Boston Lymphatic Symposium

Dhruv Singhal; Katy Börner; Elliot L Chaikof; Michael Detmar; Maija Hollmén; Jeffrey J Iliff; Maxim Itkin; Taija Makinen; Guillermo Oliver; Timothy P Padera; Ellen M Quardokus; Andrea J Radtke; Hiroo Suami; Griffin M Weber; Ilsa I Rovira; Selen C Muratoglu; Zorina S Galis

doi:10.3389/fphys.2023.1099403

Mapping the lymphatic system across body scales and expertise domains: A report from the 2021 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute workshop at the Boston Lymphatic Symposium

Front Physiol. 2023 Feb 6:14:1099403. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1099403. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Dhruv Singhal¹, Katy Börner², Elliot L Chaikof¹, Michael Detmar³, Maija Hollmén⁴, Jeffrey J Iliff⁵, Maxim Itkin⁶, Taija Makinen⁷, Guillermo Oliver⁸, Timothy P Padera⁹, Ellen M Quardokus², Andrea J Radtke¹⁰, Hiroo Suami¹¹, Griffin M Weber¹, Ilsa I Rovira¹², Selen C Muratoglu¹², Zorina S Galis¹²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Surgery, Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
² Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, United States.
³ Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
⁴ MediCity Research Laboratory, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
⁵ VISN 20 Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), VA Puget Sound Healthcare System, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Department of Neurology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, United States.
⁶ Center for Lymphatic Imaging and Interventions, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
⁷ Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
⁸ Center for Vascular and Developmental Biology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Feinberg Cardiovascular and Renal Research Institute, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States.
⁹ Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
¹⁰ Lymphocyte Biology Section and Center for Advanced Tissue Imaging, Laboratory of Immune System Biology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD, United States.
¹¹ Department of Clinical Medicine, Australian Lymphoedema Education, Research and Treatment Centre, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
¹² Division of Cardiovascular Sciences, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD, United States.

Abstract

Enhancing our understanding of lymphatic anatomy from the microscopic to the anatomical scale is essential to discern how the structure and function of the lymphatic system interacts with different tissues and organs within the body and contributes to health and disease. The knowledge of molecular aspects of the lymphatic network is fundamental to understand the mechanisms of disease progression and prevention. Recent advances in mapping components of the lymphatic system using state of the art single cell technologies, the identification of novel biomarkers, new clinical imaging efforts, and computational tools which attempt to identify connections between these diverse technologies hold the potential to catalyze new strategies to address lymphatic diseases such as lymphedema and lipedema. This manuscript summarizes current knowledge of the lymphatic system and identifies prevailing challenges and opportunities to advance the field of lymphatic research as discussed by the experts in the workshop.

Keywords: lymphatic anatomy; lymphatic disease; lymphatic research; lymphedema; mapping.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

R01 HL151388/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States