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Updated: May 6, 2026
A Simple Bioassay for the Evaluation of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factors
Published on: March 15, 2016
Phylogenetic analysis and positive-selection site detecting of vascular endothelial growth factor family in
Wenwu He1, Yanyan Tang2, Bin Qi2
1Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, China; Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Nanchong Central Hospital, The Second Clinical College of North Sichuan Medical college, Nanchong, Sichuan, PR China.
Abstract:
Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), known to play an important role in vascular homeostasis, vascular integrity and angiogenesis, is little known about the evolutionary relationship of its five members especially the role of gene duplication and natural selection in the evolution of the VEGF family. In this study, seventy-five full-length cDNA sequences from 33 vertebrate species were extracted from the NCBI's GenBank, UniProt protein database and the Ensembl database. By phylogenetic analyses, we investigated the origin, conservation, and evolution of the VEGFs. Five VEGF family members in vertebrates might be formed by gene duplication. The inferred evolutionary transitions that separate members which belong to different gene clusters correlated with changes in functional properties. Selection analysis and protein structure analysis were combined to explain the relationship of the site-specific evolution in the vertebrate VEGF family. Eleven positive selection sites, one transmembrane region and the active sites were detected in this process.
