What is the VEGF pathway?
What is the VEGF pathway?
The VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) signaling pathway regulates vascular development in the embryo (vasculogenesis) and new blood vessel formation (angiogenesis).
How is VEGF activated?
VEGF belongs to the PDGF supergene family characterized by 8 conserved cysteines and functions as a homodimer structure. VEGF-A regulates angiogenesis and vascular permeability by activating 2 receptors, VEGFR-1 (Flt-1) and VEGFR-2 (KDR/Flk1 in mice).
What does anti VEGF stand for?
Anti–vascular endothelial growth factor therapy, also known as anti-VEGF therapy or anti-VEGF medication, is the use of medications that block vascular endothelial growth factor. This is done in the treatment of certain cancers and in age-related macular degeneration.
Is VEGF and VEGFA the same?
Vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the VEGFA gene.
How does VEGF signaling promote tumor vascularization?
For instance, VEGF signaling not only promotes tumor vascularization, but also induces survival signaling in an autocrine manner (Amini et al., 2012; Breen, 2007 ).
How does no and hypoxia activate the VEGF gene?
NO and hypoxia are reported to stimulate the VEGF gene expression by enhancing HIF-1α activity [106,107]. Mechanistically, NO has been shown to activate the VEGF promoter via the cis- regulatory hypoxia response element (HRE), which mediates the transactivation of VEGF transcription by HIF-1α [108,109].
How does no act to increase VEGF expression?
NO can act upstream of VEGF signaling to promote angiogenesis. Thus, increased NO, either administered by exogenous NO donors or due to the induction or overexpression of NOS, acts in vascular smooth muscle cells, in vitro, to increase VEGF expression [102,103]. A NO donor has been demonstrated to induce VEGF expression in tumor cells [104].
