Semaphorin 4D provides a link between axon guidance processes and tumor-induced angiogenesis.

ABSTRACT: Tumor progression and metastasis depend on the ability of cancer cells to initiate angiogenesis and ensure delivery of oxygen, nutrients, and growth factors to rapidly dividing transformed cells and provide access to the systemic circulation. In addition to well established growth factors and inflammatory mediators that promote capillary sprouting and endothelial cell growth and migration, an emerging body of evidence supports a previously unrecognized function for axon guidance molecules in regulation of blood vessel development. Here we show that semaphorin 4D (Sema4D), a protein originally shown to regulate axonal growth cone guidance in the developing central nervous system through its receptor, plexin-B1, is highly expressed in cell lines derived from head and neck squamous cell carci

SUBMITTER: Basile JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1482558 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature