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Expression of angiogenic factors in neurofibromas
Yasuhiro Kawachi1, Xuezhu Xu, Eiko Ichikawa
1Department of Dermatology, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. kyasuhir@med.tsukuba.ac.jp
Abstract:
We studied the expression of angiogenic factors (vascular endothelial growth factor, basic fibroblast growth factor, platelet-derived growth factor and hepatocyte growth factor) in cutaneous neurofibroma samples from patients with neurofibromatosis-1. Immunohistochemical staining and the reverse transcribed polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method demonstrated that vascular endothelial and basic fibroblast growths factor are highly expressed in neurofibroma cells at both the protein and mRNA level. These data suggest that vascular endothelial and basic fibroblast growth factors may contribute to both the angiogenesis and hypervascularity of neurofibromas.