Comparison of VEGF versus EGF gene expression in HUVEC

Angiogenesis is defined as the formation of new capillaries by sprouting from preexisting vessels. It is mainly triggered by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and occurs in the adult primarily in wound healing processes or in pathologic tumor vessel growth. To identify genes specifically triggered by VEGF and involved in the process of angiogenesis, we utilized Affymetrix microarrays hybridized with cRNA of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) stimulated with either the main trigger of angiogenesis, VEGF or a more general mitogenic growth factor, EGF. This was done under the assumption that, in comparison to EGF, VEGF would induce an additional set of genes not solely required for cell division but necessary for angiogenesis. The obtained data revealed that in HUVEC VEGF induces a large repertoire of genes, the majority of which are not or significantly less induced by EGF. Keywords: time course HUVEC, quiescent by maintaining dense cultures in complete medium for four days without change of medium were stimulted with 100ng of VEGF or 50ng of EGF for 30, 60, 150 and 360 minutes and total RNA was isolated using Trizol.