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0:00
Welcome, everyone. Thank you
so much for being here today.
My name is Vincenza Cifarelli,
and I am an assistant
professor in
the Department of
Pharmacology and Physiology
at St. Louis University
School of Medicine.
In this talk, I'll be guiding
you through the functions
of gastrointestinal lymphatics
in nutrient absorption,
immune regulation, and disease.
By the end of this talk,
I hope you'll gain
a deeper appreciation for
the gastrointestinal
lymphatic system,
which lies at the
intersection of digestion,
immunity, and metabolism.
0:34
This is our roadmap.
By the end of today's
presentation,
I would like you to understand
the architecture of
gastrointestinal lymphatics and
their key structural components,
appreciate their main
physiological roles
from fluid balance to
lipid transport to
immune cell trafficking,
and recognize how molecular
and mechanical mechanisms
regulate these processes.
Finally, we will explore
how dysfunction in
gastrointestinal lymphatics
contributes to disease
and what that means for
potential therapies.
1:10
Let's begin with a bit
of history and how we
first came to know about
this remarkable system.
Gastrointestinal lymphatics
were first described
in 1622 by Italian
anatomist Gaspare Aselli,
who discovered the milky veins
in the mesentery
of a well-fed dog.
In the mid 1600s,
the thoracic duct's
connection to
the venous system
was discovered,
and Rudbeck identified
lymphatic vessels
beyond the digestive tract,
establishing the idea of
a lymphatic circulation.
In the 19th century,
scientists linked
lymphatics to disease,
recognizing their
role in pathology and
describing their
endothelial structure
and absorptive function.
In the modern era, advances
in molecular biology
introduced lymphatic markers,
such as the vascular endothelial
growth factor receptor 3,
PROX1, and podoplanin, along
with growth factors like
VEGF-C/D, enabling precise
study of lymphatic development,
function, and
dysfunction in disease.
So as you can see from
these schematics,
our understanding
has progressed from
gross anatomy to
molecular detail,
opening entirely new avenues
for research and therapy.
The gastrointestinal
lymphatic system
