Abstract
Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, has become a broad subject and is a very active area for current research. This paper describes the main biological events involved in angiogenesis and their importance in cancer progression. In the first section, a fundamental overview of tumour biology is presented. In the second section, the biology of healthy blood vessels is described and, in the third section, the mechanisms of cell migration and proliferation, which are crucial to angiogenesis, are discussed. In the fourth section, a detailed account of tumour-induced angiogenesis is given, whilst the pro- and anti-angiogenic factors involved are reviewed in the fifth section. Finally, the processes of tumour invasion and metastasis are examined in the sixth section.
Highlights
This paper describes the main biological events involved in angiogenesis and their importance in cancer progression
Separating the vessel from the functional tissue of an organ is a layer of connective tissue. This is composed of stromal cells, principally fibroblasts, which secrete a matrix of extracellular protein fibres, such as collagen and fibronectin (Alberts et al, 1994)
The endothelial cell (EC) continue to secrete proteolytic enzymes, which degrade the extra-cellular matrix (ECM) (Burke and DeNardo, 2001). This is necessary to create a pathway along which the cells can move (Pepper, 2001), and may release growth factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), that have been sequestered in the matrix, augmenting the angiogenic signal (Hirschi and D’Amore, 1996)
Summary
Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, has become a broad subject and is a very active area for current research. This paper describes the main biological events involved in angiogenesis and their importance in cancer progression. A fundamental overview of tumour biology is presented. The biology of healthy blood vessels is described and, in the third section, the mechanisms of cell migration and proliferation, which are crucial to angiogenesis, are discussed. A detailed account of tumour-induced angiogenesis is given, whilst the pro- and anti-angiogenic factors involved are reviewed in the fifth section. The processes of tumour invasion and metastasis are examined in the sixth section
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