The role of angiogenic molecules, like vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) in tumor angiogenesis was well confirmed. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) action is, to very high degree, based on tumor vasculature damage. Therefore, it seemed to be important to evaluate growth factor receptors after PDT. The extent of receptor expression was studied by immuno-histo...

BACKGROUND: this study was designed to characterize some of the biochemical and molecular genetic changes during reversion of human fat cells. METHODS: mature adipocytes were isolated from greater omental fat tissue of eight lean and 14 massively obese persons by established methodology. RESULTS: at day 7 of adherence to Leighton tubes, there was appreciable depletion of triacylglycerol, as wel...

Heparin-like saccharides play an essential role in binding to the fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-1 and to their membrane receptors fibroblast growth factor receptor forming a ternary complex that is responsible of the internalization of the signal, via the dimerization of the intracellular regions of the receptor. In this study, we report the binding affinities between five synthetic hexasaccha...

Dysregulated expression of basic fibroblast growth factor [fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF-2)] mediates autocrine growth of melanoma cells. The presence of a consensus Myb binding site in the human FGF-2 promoter prompted us to investigate whether this transcription factor could regulate FGF-2 expression in melanomas. We report that c-MYB mRNA is overexpressed in melanoma cell lines compared to...

BACKGROUND Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) promotes vascular repair and angiogenesis and can induce in vitro tissue factor (TF), a potent agent initiating thrombogenesis, which probably plays a role in angiogenesis. We investigated whether bFGF administration induced TF expression by monocytes and vascular cells. METHODS AND RESULTS We studied TF expression in normally fed (n=16) and ch...

To assess the role of fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling in pulmonary function in the postnatal period, we generated transgenic mice in which a soluble FGF receptor (FGFR-HFc) was conditionally expressed in respiratory epithelial cells of the mouse lung, thereby inhibiting FGF activity. Although FGFR-HFc did not alter postnatal lung morphogenesis, male FGFR-HFc transgenic mice were more s...

The role of heparin in the complex formation between fibroblast growth factor 2 and its high affinity receptor: comparative modelling and biochemical studies L. Pellegrini*', P. Commander*, B. Mulloyt, M. Martin-Martinez*, T. L. BlundelP and D. F. Burke* *Department of Biochemistry, 80 Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 IQW, U.K. and tNational Institute for Biological Standards and Control, Blanc...