Analysis of VEGF-A Regulated Gene Expression in Endothelial Cells to Identify Genes Linked to Angiogenesis

作者:Rivera Corban G*; Mellberg Sofie; Claesson Welsh Lena; Bader Joel S; Popel Aleksander S
来源:PLos One, 2011, 6(9): e24887.
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0024887

摘要

Angiogenesis is important for many physiological processes, diseases, and also regenerative medicine. Therapies that inhibit the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) pathway have been used in the clinic for cancer and macular degeneration. In cancer applications, these treatments suffer from a "tumor escape phenomenon'' where alternative pathways are upregulated and angiogenesis continues. The redundancy of angiogenesis regulation indicates the need for additional studies and new drug targets. We aimed to (i) identify novel and missing angiogenesis annotations and (ii) verify their significance to angiogenesis. To achieve these goals, we integrated the human interactome with known angiogenesis-annotated proteins to identify a set of 202 angiogenesis-associated proteins. Across endothelial cell lines, we found that a significant fraction of these proteins had highly perturbed gene expression during angiogenesis. After treatment with VEGF-A, we found increasing expression of HIF-1 alpha, APP, HIV-1 tat interactive protein 2, and MEF2C, while endoglin, liprin beta 1 and HIF-2 alpha had decreasing expression across three endothelial cell lines. The analysis showed differential regulation of HIF-1 alpha and HIF-2 alpha. The data also provided additional evidence for the role of endothelial cells in Alzheimer's disease.

  • 出版日期2011-9-13