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Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Cancer

  • 32 Accesses

Synonyms

Vascular endothelial growth factor; Vascular permeability factor; VEGF; VPF

Characteristics

VEGF Family

Four VEGF family members have been described in mammals, VEGF-A through VEGF-D. VEGF-E, the fifth member of the family, is coded by the Orf virus. An additional relative is the placenta-derived growth factor, PlGF. Whereas the VEGFs are potent growth promoting and vascular permeability enhancing factors, PlGF is incapable of inducing permeability. All members exert their biological functions as homodimers. VEGFs act almost exclusively on endothelial cells. VEGF is expressed by almost all cell types with the exception of endothelial cells which express only marginal amounts of the growth factor. Expression is controlled by a number of different mechanisms. Extracellular signals such as growth factors and cytokines are able to induce transcription of the VEGF gene. Activated oncogenes, such as ras, raf, or src, as well as inactivated tumor suppressor genes, such as p53 or von...

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References

  • Carmeliet P (2000) Mechanisms of angiogenesis and arteriogenesis. Nat Med 6:389–395

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  • Siemeister G, Martiny-Baron G, Marmé D (1998) The pivotal role of VEGF in tumor angiogenesis: molecular facts and therapeutic opportunities. Cancer Metastasis Rev 17:241–248

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See Also

  • (2012) Humanized antibodies. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, p 1760. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_2863

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  • (2012) Monoclonal antibody. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, p 2367. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_6842

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  • (2012) Monoclonal antibody therapy. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp 2367-2368. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_3823

    Google Scholar 

  • (2012) P53. In: Schwab M (ed) Encyclopedia of cancer, 3rd edn. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, p 2747. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-16483-5_4331

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tumor Biology Center, Institute of Molecular Oncology, Freiburg, Germany

    Dieter Marmé

Authors
  1. Dieter Marmé
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Correspondence to Dieter Marmé .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Abt. Tumorgenetik, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg, Germany

    Manfred Schwab

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Marmé, D. (2015). Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor. In: Schwab, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cancer. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27841-9_6155-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27841-9_6155-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-27841-9

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