Lymphatic system comprising of fluid draining lymphatic vessels and immune sentinels like lymph nodes plays a major role in fluid and immune homeostasis. Even though lymphatic vessels are identified several centuries ago, its only since last 2-3 decades the role of the lymphatic system in health and disease is becoming better recognized by the scientific and medical communities.
Till date considerable amount of research was performed in characterizing lymphatic vessels, identifying lymphatic growth factors, signaling cascades and the role of lymphatic vessels in pathologies like lymphedema, cancer, and obesity. Recent advancements also implicated lymphatic vessels in multiple pathophysiological conditions involving different organ systems like heart, brain, kidney, lungs, liver, and skin to mention a few. With the progress of lymphatic research new aspects related to lymphatic system are being revealed everyday along with new unanswered questions. The accumulated knowledge and the enthusiasm to answer the new questions is rapidly expanding the lymphatic research boundaries that will potentially help pave way to cure myriad lymphatic related diseases.
Even given this wider appreciation there are still many gaps in our knowledge that need to be addressed. With this goal in mind, this Research Topic aims to summarize the current lymphatic research progress and also encourages researchers and clinicians to submit their cutting-edge lymphatic research findings to this special edition of Frontiers focused on the physiology and pathology of the lymphatic system in health and disease.
This Research Topic welcomes basic, translational, clinical, and applied research that improves our understanding of the lymphatic system. Potential areas of interest may include, but are not limited to:
- Cellular and molecular regulators of physiology
- Regulation of the immune/lymph axis in health and disease
- Changes in lymphatic architecture in chronic injury and disease
- Novel therapeutics for primary and secondary lymphatic diseases
- Organotypic lymphatic vasculature
- Lymphatic endothelial cell metabolism
- Lymphatics and aging
- Lymphatic muscle cells and contractility
- Lymphatic endothelial cell heterogeneity
- Lymphatic function in lymphedema/cancer/obesity
We welcome the submission of different article types to this collection, especially reviews, mini-reviews, and original research papers. For a complete list of article types that can be considered, please follow this
link.
Even though abstract submission is not mandatory, we encourage all interested researchers to submit an abstract before submitting their manuscript. Abstracts do not have to coincide with the final abstract of the manuscripts.
Guest Editor Prof. Babak J. Mehrara received royalties from PureTech Health, receives financial support from PureTech Health and Regeneron, and worked as a consultant for Pfizer. The other Topic Editors declare no conflicts of interest with regard to the Research Topic subject.