Vasculogenesis

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The embryonic process by which primitive endothelial cells assemble into the first blood vessels of a developing organism
2. The early development of a network of blood vessels formed directly from precursor cells during embryonic growth
3. Formation of the initial vascular system in an embryo through the aggregation of endothelial cells into tubes

Etymology: Vasculogenesis is a technical coinage built from two parts, and its first half is itself a shrunken Latin word. "Vasculum" is a diminutive of Latin "vas," meaning vessel or container, so it originally referred to a small pot or flask before anatomists applied it to the small tubes of the body. The second half, "-genesis," comes from Greek "genesis," meaning origin, birth or coming into being, and it has been used in English for centuries to name processes of formation, as in "biogenesis" or "osteogenesis." Put together, the term describes the process by which blood vessels form from scratch, as opposed to angiogenesis, the growth of new vessels from existing ones. The distinction between the two is what gives the word its precision: vasculogenesis refers to the de novo assembly of the earliest vessel networks in an embryo, when cells clump together and hollow out into channels.