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Angiogenesis

Regulating vessel size

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 10, page 85 (2010)Cite this article

Subcutaneous transplantation of ES cells into mice results in the formation of tumours that contain various cell types (teratomas). Gavin Thurston, George Yancopoulos and colleagues used a reporter-gene system to target vascular-specific genes in ES cells, allowing them to track the contribution to teratoma formation of ES cells that express these genes. They found that ES cells can give rise to endothelial cells, which form vascular networks, and that these cells comprise a substantial proportion (approximately 50%) of the total teratoma endothelial cells. The ES cell-derived endothelial cells had a similar gene expression profile to host-derived endothelial cells. The ES cell-derived vessel networks could also be perfused by a tracer, indicating that they were functional. Therefore, these results collectively suggested that ES cells can differentiate into bona fide endothelial cells in mouse teratomas.

Zhe Li et al. then used their ES cell teratoma system to investigate the role of individual vascular-specific genes in tumour angiogenesis by creating knockout ES cells. Specifically, they found that vascular endothelial receptor tyrosine phosphatase ( Veptp )-knockout ES cells contributed to the teratoma vasculature and that Veptp-knockout blood vessels were larger in diameter and formed a less hierarchical pattern than host-derived blood vessels.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Li, Z. et al. Gene-targeted teratoma model reveals role of Tie2 and vascular endothelial receptor tyrosine phosphatase in regulating tumor angiogenesis. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 15 Dec 2009 (doi:10.1073/pnas.0911189106)

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Authors
  1. Meera Swami
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Swami, M. Regulating vessel size. Nat Rev Cancer 10, 85 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc2790

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