To address this need, Helen Blau and colleagues from Stanford University investigated the relationship between VEGF dosage and blood vessel formation. In their report in the February 16 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation the authors implanted myoblast cells, which expressed VEGF, into the muscles of mice and documented the resulting new vessel growth. Blau and colleagues were able to distinguish a threshold level of VEGF that distinguished normal from abnormal blood vessel growth. The data indicate that long-term continuous delivery of VEGF, when maintained below a threshold microenvironmental level, can lead to normal blood vessel growth. These findings may guide strategies for therapeutic VEGF delivery.
TITLE: Microenvironmental VEGF concentration, not total dose, determines a threshold between normal and aberrant angiogenesis
AUTHOR CONTACT:
Helen Blau
Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.
Phone: 650-723-6209
Fax: 650-736-0080
E-mail: hblau@stanford.edu
View the PDF of this article at: http://www.jci.org/cgi/content/full/113/4/516
Journal of Clinical Investigation