Informative Mapping by VESGEN Analysis of Venation Branching Pattern in Plant Leaves Such as Arabidopsis thaliana

Humans face daunting challenges to successful extra-terrestrial exploration and colonization, including adverse alterations in gravity and radiation. The Earth-determined biology of plants, animals and humans is significantly modified in space environments. One physiological requirement shared by larger plants with humans and animals is a complex, highly branching vascular system. Genetic programs for these vasculatures respond sensitively to alterations in cellular metabolism, immunological status, and other specialized cellular/tissue signals resulting from environmental effects. VESsel GENeration Analysis (VESGEN) software is being developed at NASA Glenn as a mature, userinteractive research computer code for mapping and quantification of the fractal-based complexity of vascular branching. Change in vascular branching pattern provides an informative read-out of alterations in complex regulatory signaling pathways. VESGEN has provided novel insights into the cytokine, transgenic, and therapeutic regulation of pathological and physiological angiogenesis, lymphangiogenesis, and other microvascular remodeling phenomena (Liu et al., 2009; McKay et al., 2008; Parsons-Wingerter et al., 1998, 2000a&b, 2006a&b, 2010). Vascular morphology is mapped and quantified by userspecified selection from the VESGEN Tree, Network and Tree-Network Composite Analysis Options. Innovative applications described in these studies include disease progression from ophthalmic clinical images of the human retina, experimental regulation of vascular remodeling in the mouse retina, avian and mouse coronary vasculature, and other experimental models in vivo reviewed recently by Vickerman et al. (2009).