Vascular endothelial growth factor: much more than an angiogenesis factor

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is best known as a cytokine essential for embryonic vasculogenesis and for the angiogenesis associated with various pathologies including cancer. However, VEGF also serves other functions that are less widely recognized. An early study (Berse et al., 1992) revealed widespread expression of VEGF transcripts in adult tissues devoid of ongoing neovascularization, thereby predicting additional VEGF functions distinct from angiogenesis. More recent studies have confirmed that VEGF does indeed serve multiple additional functions, including normal maintenance of endothelial and neural cell compartments. These findings have important implications for the use of VEGF antagonists and VEGF receptor antagonists in patients for which inhibition of pathological angiogenesis is the therapeutic goal.