Boston scientists have discovered a blood vessel cell switch that controls vessel growth, opening the way for new drugs to combat eye problems.
The finding by the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston, published in the current issue of The EMBO Journal, is believed capable of leading to new, better targeted drugs for diseases such as cancer, diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration.
The researchers at Schepens, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, learned that the switch is turned on and off by the balance between two enzymes, which compete for the same lipid membrane to fulfill both growth and regression.
An important natural process, new vessel growth, or angiogenesis, restores blood flow after injury, increases circulation in a damaged heart and prepares a woman¹s body for pregnancy. But, when uncontrolled it can feed cancer tumors and damage delicate retinal tissues.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
Related stories:
Researchers discover new way to reverse poor circulation and heal wounds
Researchers have solved a longstanding mystery about how flexing muscles “tell” nearby blood vessels that they need more blood to perform, according to a study published Feb. 15 in the journal
Circulation Research. The study mechanism suggests new ways to treat conditions that involve poor circulation like peripheral artery disease, which comes with aging, affects 10 million Americans and leads to amputation in the worst cases. Furthermore, the same signals that influence circulation in some tissues drive cell growth elsewhere. That could lead to an ointment that would speed healing when spread across chronic wounds.
Vessel-thwarting antibody might help starve cancerous tumors
An antibody might offer a safe and effective complement to anti-cancer therapies designed to starve malignant tumors by pruning the blood vessels that feed them, researchers report in the November 2 issue of the journal
Cell.
Stem cells in adult testes provide alternative to embryonic stem cells for organ regeneration
Easily accessed and plentiful, adult stem cells found in a male patient's testicles might someday be used to create a wide range of tissue types to help him fight disease -- getting around the need for more controversial embryonic stem cells.
Pathway links inflammation, angiogenesis and breast cancer
A well-known inflammatory protein spawns an enzyme that inactivates two tumor-suppressing genes, ultimately triggering production of new blood vessels to nourish breast cancer cells, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the August edition of the journal
Cell.
Nanotextured implant materials: blending in, not fighting back
Biomedical engineers are constantly coming up with ways to repair the human body, replacing defective and worn out parts with plastic, titanium, and ceramic substitutes – but the body does not always accept such substitutes seamlessly. Engineers from Brown and Purdue universities have found that simply changing the surface texture of implants can dramatically change the way cells colonize a wide variety of materials.
New angiogenesis finding may help fight cancer growth
A researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health has discovered a new part of the complicated mechanism that governs the formation of blood vessels, or angiogenesis.
Researchers devise means to create blood by identifying earliest stem cells
Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered the earliest form of human blood stem cells and deciphered the mechanism by which these embryonic stem cells replicate and grow. They also found a surprising biological marker that pinpoints these stem cells, which serve as the progenitors for red blood cells and lymphocytes.
Blood vessel cells are instructed to form tube-like structures
How do blood vessel cells understand that they should organise themselves in tubes and not in layers? A research group from Uppsala University shows for the first time that a special type of "instructor" molecule is needed to accomplish this. These findings, published in the scientific journal
Blood, might be an important step towards using stem cells to build new organs.