Salivary glands vascularization: from morphogenesis to degeneration

• Grant number: 18/19306-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2018
• End date: October 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Dentistry
• Principal Investigator: Silvia Vanessa Lourenço
• Grantee: Jennyfer Jaber
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Odontologia (FO). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease characterized by the development of degenerative alterations in salivary glands until the complete destruction of the glandular parenchyma, making the morphological analysis of salivary glands one of the main diagnostic criteria of the disease. It is described that vascularization plays an important role in the salivary gland development, however, the evolution from the initial endothelial vascular plexus until the full development of mature vessels in human salivary gland morphogenesis is still unknown. In inflammation the role of vascularization is well stablished, however, there are no evidence of its influence in the pSS development or in the alterations of the salivary fluid volume and composition. Therefore, the aim of this study is to characterize the vascular aspects from the morphogenesis of human salivary glands to its degeneration. The vascular aspects will be characterized by immunohistochemistry, thus, specimens of minor salivary glands from patients diagnosed with pSS and healthy post-mortem specimens will be selected. For the analysis of the role of vascularization in the morphogenesis, five labial salivary glands specimens from human fetuses from each stage of development (initial bud, pseudoglandular, canalicular and end-buds) will be selected. Our results aim to understand the inflammatory vascular alterations when compared to the normal development of the salivary and its influence in the saliva formation.