The three faces of pericytes

Cardiac pericytes function as key vasoactive cells to regulate homeostasis and disease

“…The ability of PCs to contract and relax has been studied on retinal [29,30], renal [31][32][33][34], and brain [35][36][37][38][39][40][41] PCs. PCs from these tissues express contractile proteins, can generate force, and have integrated calcium signaling across the vascular bed [31,32,42,43]. However, the contractile properties of cardiac PCs have not been studied.…”