Abstract
The March issue of the Journal of Histochemistry & Cytochemistry contains the first article in the Special Topics Series Endothelial Cell and Pericyte Home-ostasis and Pathogenesis. Throughout 2024, the Jo-urnal will publish a series of invited articles.
The evolution from a “Special Issue” to “Special Topics Series” by JHC is the result of several changes in the scholarly publication space over the last de-cade. Although Special Issues afforded a journal to highlight a specific subject, they required all the ma-nuscripts to appear in the same print edition, punishing the authors who submitted first, to see their contribution published, without penalty to the laggards. The shift to online publication has removed this burden and affords the capacity to generate online mo-nographs, easing the efforts and stresses of editors and authors for a journal to provide an in-depth analysis of a selected topic.
The goal remains the same: the opportunity for JHC and its editorial leadership to focus on a topic of importance within the scope of the journal. Publishing articles as a series affords the contributing authors some flexibility on deadlines while also providing immediate publication and impact of their contributions. At the completion of the series, the journal can package the works as an electronic monograph.
The choice of a series on Endothelial Cell and Pe-ricyte Homeostasis and Pathogenesis was an organic decision, with substantial support from the Editorial Board. Four members of the editorial board—Ron Van Noorden, Rebecca Hull, Thomas Wight, and Douglas Rosene—stepped forward to lead this effort. The most complex decisions were the scope and title, which are illustrative of the significance of endothelial biology and the central role of in situ evaluation of in vivo processes to understanding the mechanisms for delivering sustenance and removing waste by multicellular organisms.
The impetus for this topic was the evolving appreciation that the vasculature is more than just a conduit for oxygen, nutrients, and immune cells, but also plays an active role in homeostasis and ultimately a dynamic role in pathophysiology. For decades, investigations of the role of endothelial cells and pericyte were hammered by the lack of in situ analytic assays that allow interrogation of a very small fraction of the cellular content of any organ. With these new assays, the endothelium and pericytes are no longer “stromal cells in the background of the biology” but are understood to contribute to the complexity of the pathophysiology of a diversity of disorders.
The first article in the series is entitled “Diabetes as a Pancreatic Microvascular Disease—A Pericytic Perspective” from Joana Almaca and colleagues at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.