More blood vessels sprout on cell clusters that fashion VEGF111 (bottom).

Cells that suffer DNA damage start pumping out a previously undiscovered version of the angiogenesis promoter VEGF, as Mineur et al. report. The variant, which is tough and mobile, might help cancer cells tap new sources of blood.

Researchers have already nabbed about 10 versions of VEGF, which many cancer cells overproduce to feed their need for blood. Mineur et al. were studying the effects of UV light on cells when they stumbled across another variant that lacks three of the eight standard VEGF exons. The new version, which the researchers dubbed VEGF111, forms in cells exposed to UV radiation or DNA-breaking compounds such as camptothecin. Those results suggest that the VEGF111 results from DNA damage.

VEGF111 is short but sturdy; it lacks the region that's vulnerable to protein-slicing enzymes such as plasmin, making...

The Rockefeller University Press
2007
The Rockefeller University Press
2007
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