Increased growth of vessels that shuttle immune cells involved in inflammation actually prevents chronic skin inflammation.

Michael Detmar at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and his colleagues engineered a mouse model of psoriasis — an autoimmune skin condition — to overexpress in the skin a protein called VEGF-C, which promotes the generation of lymphatic vessels. The mice made more lymphatic vessels than normal psoriatic mice, but showed fewer signs of skin inflammation, with symptoms disappearing after four weeks. Treating the skin of the normal psoriatic mice with a recombinant form of VEGF-C had similar effects.

J. Exp. Med. doi:10.1084/jem.20100559 (2010)