[The regulating roles of angiopoietins/TEK-2 in angiogenesis]

Angiopoietins(ANGPT) and their endothelial cell-specific tyrosine kinase receptors TEK are the major regulators of blood vessels angiogenesis under physiological and pathologic conditions. ANGPT1 is essentially involved in maturation, stabilization, and remodeling of blood vessels through inducing TEK autophosphorylation, promoting endothelial cell migration and survival. Instead, ANGPT2 appears to act as a natural antagonist of ANGPT1, it can activate vascular remodeling with the presence of vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF) or regress frank blood vessels under the absence of VEGF. High expression of angiopoietins and TEK is often detected in tumor tissues. Many studies showed that disrupting the ANGPT/TEK receptor pathway could inhibit the growth of a number of murine tumors and human tumors. Thus, it is possible that inhibitors targeting the ANGPT/TEK pathway will have broad clinical utility to treatment of cancer.