ENDOGENOUS ANGIOGENESIS INHIBITOR ENDOSTATIN: AN OVERVIEW

摘要

Angiogenesis, the process of new blood vessel formation, plays a central role in both local tumor growth and distant metastasis. Healthy adults require angiogenesis only for wound healing, endometrial proliferation and pregnancy. Thus the inhibition of angiogenesis offers an attractive therapeutic target with little expected toxicity. However, mutant tumor cells may over time produce angiogenic factors. There fore, for long-term use in cancer, combinations of angiogenesis inhibitors or broad spectrum angiogenesis inhibitors will be needed. The first angiogenesis inhibitor endostatin for cancer was approved by China. Endostatin is a fragment of collagen XVIII A1 that acts as an endogenous inhibitor of angiogenesis and tumor growth, generated by tumor-derived proteases. It shows broad spectrum anti-angiogenesis action and downregulates pathological angiogenesis without side-effects. Endostatin displays a high antitumor activity in vivo: it inhibits the progression of more than 60 types of tumors. This review highlights generation, structure, biological role, mechanisms of endostatin's action and its antiangiogenic signaling network