Expression of Vascular Endothelial Growt Factor and Its Receptors fit and KDR in Ovarian Carcinoma

Abstract

Coexpression of VEGF and KDR by tumor cells in ovarian carcinoma raises the possibility of autocrine stimulation and of therapeutic strategies targeting this receptor-ligand interaction.

Expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in epithelial ovarian neoplasms: correlation with clinicopathology and patient survival, and analysis of serum VEGF levels

“…Immunostaining of VEGF localized in the tumour cells of ovarian carcinoma is consistent with the previous reports of mRNA and protein expression in cultured ovarian cancer cells (Olson et al, 1994) and in ovarian carcinoma tissues (Boocock et al, 1995;Abu-Jawdeh et al, 1996). In our study, immunoreactivity for VEGF was observed in 96% of carcinomas, 52% of LMP tumours and 33% of benign cystadenomas (P < 0.01), and the frequency of strong immunostaining was significantly higher in carcinomas (54%) than that in benign (7%) or LMP (8%) tumours (P <0.01).…”

“…This antibody is reported to react specifically with VEGF of mouse, rat and human origin and has been used previously for immunohistochemical investigation of VEGF localization in normal and neoplastic human tissues (Boocock et al, 1995;Harrison-Woolrych et al, 1995;Kamat et al, 1995;Neulen et al, 1995;Gordon et al, 1996).…”

“…The common pathway of tumour progression in ovarian carcinomas is peritoneal dissemination, and the progressive accumulation of ascites is frequent with or without malignant tumour cells in the peritoneal fluid. It has been reported recently that ovarian carcinomas express VEGF mRNA and VEGF protein (Olson et al, 1994;Boocock et al, 1995;Abu-Jawdeh et al, 1996). Whether the level of VEGF expression is different among benign cystadenomas, tumours of low malignant potential (LMP) and carcinomas (Abu-Jawdeh et al, 1996) is still unclear.…”

“…VEGF has been reported to be synthesized and secreted by a variety of cultured tumour cells (Senger et al, 1986) and human solid tumours, such as brain tumours (Plate et al, 1992;Berkman et al, 1993;Samoto et al, 1995), lung cancers (Mattem et al, 1996), breast carcinomas , gastrointestinal tract adenocarcinomas (Brown et al, 1993a), renal and bladder carcinomas (Brown et al, 1993b;Takahashi et al, 1994) and epithelial ovarian carcinomas (Olson et al, 1994;Boocock et al, 1995;Abu-Jawdeh et al, 1996). Increased expression of VEGF has been suggested to be involved in tumorigenesis, metastasis and the production of malignant effusion via the enhancement of vascular permeability or angiogenesis Neufeld et al, al, 1994).…”

Retroviral hybrid LTR vector strategy: functional analysis of LTR elements and generation of endothelial cell specificity

“…Flt-1 and KDR, encoding receptors for VEGF, are upregulated in areas of neovascularization, and might therefore be expected to show specificity for endothelial cells proliferating in response to angiogenic signals within tumours. [28][29][30] ICAM-2 is widely expressed on endothelial cells, including tumour vasculature. 31 All have been subjected to some promoter characterization with regard to endothelial specificity, using transient transfection assays for flt-1 32 and KDR 33 or transgenic mice for ICAM-2.…”