The role of vascular endothelial growth factors and their receptors in malignant melanomas
Abstract:
Vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGFs) have a leading role among variety of angiogenic factors. Together with their receptors, they play an important role in endothelial cell proliferation and/or elongation, migration and vascular morphogenesis. In order to determine their possible role in malignant melanoma progression, VEGF (representing VEGFA), VEGF-C and VEGFR-1, -2, -3 immunohistochemical expression on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections were evaluated. A total of 196 tissue samples consisting of 130 malignant melanomas (MM) with various vertical depth of invasion, 15 metastatic melanomas, and 66 nevi including dysplastic nevi and melanocytic nevi were analysed. Production of both VEGFs were common in benign melanocytic tumors while MM exhibited significant upregulation of VEGF (psion in the capillary endothelium, which was used for angiogenesis detection. Our work demonstrated that upregulation of VEGFs is associated with progression of malignant melanomas. The protein expression in the tumor microenvironment highlights their importance in malignant stromal phenotype which may serve as a potential target for the anticancer therapy.