Angiogenesis - PDGF-B

Research done at Summer Program Elio Academy of Biomedical Sciences

Angiogenesis is the process in which blood vessels are formed and developed, allowing oxygen and nutrients, which are an important aspect of many processes in living organisms, to be delivered around to the body's tissues. It is vital and crucial to growth, development, and wound healing. A specific cell in angiogenesis is PDGF-B which is a protein gene that provides and gives out instructions on making a version of the PDGF protein. This protein involves many processes including cell growth, maturation, and more. It also controls the growth of tissue cells such as fibroblasts and muscle cells.

Continuing on from the previous point, angiogenesis plays a huge and extremely critical role in the growth and promotion of cancer because tumors must have the blood supply to be able to grow in size. Tumors can cause these blood supplies to form by giving off chemical signals which then stimulate angiogenesis and then grows new blood vessels. These tumors also have the ability to stimulate normal and healthy cells to produce molecules that signal angiogenesis. Angiogenesis is neither good nor bad it really depends on how your body reacts to the angiogenesis that stimulates inside of you. For example, a cell in angiogenesis is PDGF-B, with an excessive amount of PDGF-B there can be many disorders including pulmonary hypertension, organ fibrosis, and many more. Treatment for disorders like pulmonary hypertension can be treated by anticoagulant medicines which prevent blood clots.

Based on the lecture notes and the lecture itself, it explained that there are various types of angiogenesis, such as tumor angiogenesis and much more. In addition, it also mentions that angiogenesis inhibitors, which play a key and necessary role in angiogenesis, in the aspect that it encourages and promotes angiogenesis to occur in a specific region. This may cause tumor progression, and/or acquisition of the phenotype. This further explains the way that angiogenesis affects and influences the human body due to how it creates new blood vessels to support the growth and development and cancer cells/tumors. Moreover, it also explained that angiogenesis requires tissue organization and cell proliferation. Additionally to that, there are many proteins and cells related to angiogenesis such as PBGF-B.

In many ways, angiogenesis merges into human life in both good and bad ways , on the positive side, it allows oxygen and various nutrients to be delivered to the body's tissue. It's a function that is required for human growth and development as well as for healing wounds. As the medical field around us is constantly growing and growing, there could be millions of ways out there to further develop our understanding and education of angiogenesis. One of which could maybe be a drug that is specific to cancer cells , the drug could stop the cells from sending chemical signals which stimulate angiogenesis. There are a few approved drugs such as axitinib, Lenvatinib , and many others. Another idea could also be a type of technology that could possibly put an end to the tumor from using and feeding on the valuable blood to grow. In the near future, there will definitely be more and safer healthcare to treat things like tumors but there are also things that cannot be achieved even with advanced technology. However, I believe that even if we may not succeed by creating or proposing ideas to help problems such as these, it is better to try and fail but not try at all.

_ By: Gemmi Haripottawekul _

The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Elio Academy.