Lymphatics as the origin of the fish secondary vascular system

Last modified on July 24, 2026 • 1 min read • 123 words
Science   Vascular Biology   Lymphatics   Zebrafish   Blood Vessels   Development   Secondary Vascular System   Anal Fin   Karina Yaniv   Kari Alitalo   Michael Jeltsch   Nature (Journal)  
Science   Vascular Biology   Lymphatics   Zebrafish   Blood Vessels   Development   Secondary Vascular System   Anal Fin   Karina Yaniv   Kari Alitalo   Michael Jeltsch   Nature (Journal)  
In zebrafish, the blood vessels of the anal fin develop from lymphatics by transdifferentiation.
Lymphatics as the origin of the fish secondary vascular system
Image by DataBase Center for Life Science (DBCLS), source: Wikimedia 

In zebrafish, the blood vessels of the anal fin develop from lymphatics by transdifferentiation. Karina Yaniv presented unorthodox, but very compelling data supporting this conclusion last September at the Kloster Seeon Angiogenesis meeting  .Now her paper has been published in Nature  .

Interestingly, but understandingly, she doesn’t really discuss in detail the relevance of her data in the context of the Secondary Vascular System (SVS), which is a specialized compartment of the cardiovascular system in fish. Kari Alitalo and I are doing exactly that in our News & Views  discussion of her article. We hope to get lots of constructive pushback from everybody who doesn’t agree with our interpretation, that the blood vessels that Karina describes are identical to those of the SVS.

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