Endothelial cells and blood vessels are major targets for COVID-19-induced tissue injury and spreading to various organs

Figure 4 Nerve growth factor gene therapy increases nerve growth factor expression and reverses impaired in vitro angiogenesis in aging gastric endothelial cells. A: Nerve growth factor (NGF) gene therapy of aging Gastric endothelial cells (GECs) using lentiviral-NGF (LV-NGF) induced NGF expression (brown staining) and extensive, long filopodia (arrows) reflecting a change in these cells to an angiogenic phenotype; aging GECs without gene therapy (negative controls) have minimal NGF expression and lack filopodia; B: NGF gene therapy with LV-NGF resulted in 3.7-fold increased in vitro angiogenesis at 6 h in aging GECs vs negative controls (control). Panels are representative images of capillary-like tube formation. Original magnification: × 200. Data are means ± SD (n = 6). (^aP < 0.001). NGF: Nerve growth factor; GEC: Gastric endothelial cells; LV: Lentiviral. Reproduced with permission from reference[20], which is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).