.................................................................................................................. 8 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ............................................................................ 9 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 9 1. The cardiovascular system ...........

Placenta growth factor (PlGF) is a member of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family, comprising at least five cytokines specifically involved in the regulation of vascular and/or lymphatic endothelium differentiation. Several lines of evidence indicate a role for PlGF in monocyte chemotaxis and in potentiating the activity of VEGF, but the exact function of this cytokine is not fu...

Antiangiogenic agents have been widely investigated in combination with standard chemotherapy or targeted cancer agents for better management of advanced cancers. Therapeutic agents that concurrently inhibit epidermal growth factor receptor and other angiokinases could be useful alternatives to combination therapies for epidermal growth factor receptor-dependent cancers. Here, we report the syn...

Basic fibroblast growth factor, a potent angiogenesis inducer, stimulates urokinase (uPA) production by vascular endothelial cells. In both basic fibroblast growth factor-stimulated and -nonstimulated bovine capillary endothelial and human umbilical vein endothelial cells single-chain uPA binding is mediated by a membrane protein with a Mr of 42,000. Exposure of bovine capillary or endothelial ...

To study the regulation of fenestrations by vascular endothelial growth factor in liver sinusoidal endothelial cells, SK Hep1 cells were transfected with GFP-actin and GFPcaveolin-1. SK Hep1 cells had pores some of which appeared to be fenestrations (diameter 55 ± 28 nm, porosity 2.0 ± 1.4%), rudimentary sieve plates, bristle-coated micropinocytotic vesicles and expressed caveolin-1, von Willeb...

Hypoxia and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) increase vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) expression in a number of malignancies. This effect of hypoxia and TGF-β1 might be responsible for tumor progression and metastasis of advanced prostate cancer. In the present study, TGF-β1 was shown to induce VEGFA(165) secretion from both normal cell lines (HPV7 and RWPE1) and prostate can...

Recent evidence has shown that glioblastoma stem-like cells (GSCs) can transdifferentiate into endothelial cells and vascular-like tumor cells. The latter pattern of vascularization indicates an alternative microvascular circulation known as vasculogenic mimicry (VM). However, it remains to be clarified how the GSC-driven VM makes a significant contribution to tumor vasculature. Here, we invest...