Angiogenic Responses of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factors in Periadventitial Tissue

Abstract

Recent discovery of new members of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family has generated much interest as to which members may be best suited for therapeutic angiogenesis in various tissues. In this study we evaluated angiogenic responses of the different members of the VEGF family in vivo using adenoviral gene transfer. Adenoviruses (1 × 109 plaque-forming units [pfu]) encoding for VEGF-A, VEGF-B, VEGF-C, VEGF-D, VEGF-CΔNΔC and VEGF-DΔNΔC (ΔNΔC are proteolytically cleaved forms) were transferred locally to the periadventitial space of the rabbit carotid arteries using a collar technique that allows efficient local transfection of the periadventitial tissue. Expression of the tr..