On the preservation of vessel bifurcations during flow-mediated angiogenic remodelling
Fig 5
The competition between shear stress and junction force transmission results from the inverse relationship between cell number and flow resistance.
The shear stress ratio within each vessel can also be expressed as a multiplicative combination of the cell number and pressure drop over the vessel. If we monitor cell number (red) and the pressure drop (black) in both the high-flow (top) and low-flow (bottom) vessel, we find that these two quantities are inversely correlated. Drops in the cell number are accompanied by spikes in the pressure drop and shear stress, as the narrowing of the vessel increases its resistance to flow. Similarly, increases in cell number result in a drop in resistance and the pressure drop, which decreases the amount of shear stress present in the vessel.