Neural Regeneration Research ›› 2018, Vol. 13 ›› Issue (7): 1181-1182.doi: 10.4103/1673-5374.235024

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Vascular endothelial growth factor: an essential neurotrophic factor for motoneurons?

Paula M. Calvo, Angel M. Pastor, Rosa R. de la Cruz   

  1. Departamento de Fisiología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain
  • Received:2018-05-24 Online:2018-07-15 Published:2018-07-15
  • Contact: Angel M. Pastor, Ph.D., ampastor@us.es.
  • Supported by:

    This work was supported by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad-FEDER (Grant reference: BFU2015-64515-P) in Spain. PMC was a scholar of MEC (BES-2016-077912) in Spain.

Abstract:

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), an angiogenic factor with neuroprotective effects: The VEGF was initially characterized by its vasculogenic and angiogenic activities and its capacity to promote vascular permeability. VEGF is also known as VEGF-A and is the prototype member of a related group of five trophic factors,VEGF-B, VEGF-C, VEGF-D and placental growth factor . Interestingly, VEGF-B shares a high degree of homology with VEGF but, in contrast to VEGF, has low angiogenic activity and is not pro-inflammatory. VEGF-A binds to two tyrosine quinase receptors,named VEGFR-1 and VEGFR-2, and also to the coreceptor neuropilin-1.By contrast, VEGF-B only binds to the tyrosine kinase receptor VEGFR-1 and also to the coreceptor neuropilin-1.