Mechanism of anti-angiogenic activities of chitooligosaccharides may be through inhibiting heparanase activity.

Metastatic disease is the primary cause of death for most cancer patients. Angiogenesis is the formation of a new capillary network from pre-existing vessels and required for tumor vasculature. Heparanase, a beta-endoglucuronidase, assistants tumor invasion, metastasis and angiogenesis. Chitooligosaccharides (COS) is obtained by hydrolysis of chitosan. COS has been proved to be anti-angiogenesis activity. The mechanism of COS inhibits angiogenesis is not very clear, COS is hypothesized by author to be an inhibitor of heparanase.