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Updated: Aug 16, 2026

Monitoring Functionality and Morphology of Vasculature Recruited by Factors Secreted by Fast-growing Tumor-generating Cells
Published on: November 23, 2014
The role of collagen-derived proteolytic fragments in angiogenesis
1Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, 240 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. alexander_marneros@hms.harvard.edu
Abstract:
Basement membrane molecules and fragments derived from them are regulators of biological activities such as cell growth, differentiation and migration. This review describes proteolytically derived fragments from the non-collagenous (NC1) domain at the C-terminus of the basement membrane collagens type IV, XV and XVIII, which have been implicated as regulators of angiogenesis. Endostatin is an endogenous collagen XVIII/NC1 derivative, inhibiting endothelial cell proliferation and migration in vitro and tumor-growth in vivo. A homologous NC1 domain fragment of type XV collagen has anti-angiogenic activity as well. Furthermore, NC1 domain fragments of the most abundant basement membrane collagen, type IV collagen, have been shown to inhibit induced vessel growth.
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