Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDACs) overexpress pro-angiogenic factors but are not viewed as vascular. Using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas we demonstrate that a subset of PDACs exhibits a strong pro-angiogenic signature that includes 37 genes, such as HDAC9, that are overexpressed in PDAC arising in KRC mice, which express mutated Kras and lack RB. Moreover, patient-derived orthotopic...

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common malignant primary brain tumor in adults. However, the survival of patients with GBM has been dismal after multi-disciplinary treatment with surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. In the efforts to improve clinical outcome, anti-angiogenic therapy with bevacizumab (Avastin) was introduced to inhibit vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mediated tumor ...

Thymidine phosphorylase (TP) (E.C. 2.4.2.4), also known as platelet-derived endothelial cell growth factor, is a potent angiogenic factor. The expression of TP correlates with poor prognosis in a range of tumor types. 2-Deoxy-D-ribose-1-phosphate, a product of thymidine catabolism by TP, is a strongly reducing sugar that generates oxygen radical species during the early stages of protein glycat...

Given the well-established role of angiogenesis (or new blood vessel formation) in tumor growth and metastasis, antiangiogenic therapy, a concept first proposed by Dr. Judah Folkman,[1] has become increasingly recognized as a promising new anticancer strategy. As the angiogenic switch in tumors reflects the net balance of a diverse group of endogenous angiogenic promoters and inhibitors, a mult...

Trousseau first reported over 100 years ago that cancer patients have an increased incidence of coagulopathies (1). Since Trousseau published his findings, thromboembolic disorders have been documented at elevated frequencies in patients with a wide variety of tumors such as lung, pancreas, stomach, and colon tumors (2). These clinical findings have been supported by laboratory studies that hav...

vascular endothelial growth factor (vegf-a) is one of the most important regulatory factors in pathological and physiological angiogenesis. alternative splicing is a complicated molecular process in vegf-a gene expression which adds complexity to vegf-a biology. among all vegf-a exons, alternative splicing of exon 8 is the key determinant of isoform switching from pro-angiogenic vegf-xxx to ant...

Mast cell proteases are thought to be involved with tumor progression and neo-vascularization. However, their exact role is still unclear. The present study was undertaken to further elucidate the function of specific subtypes of recombinant mouse mast cell proteases (rmMCP-6 and 7) in neo-vascularization. SVEC4-10 cells were cultured on Geltrex® with either rmMCP-6 or 7 and tube formation was ...