Our results indicate that proteolytic processing is necessary for VEGF-D to promote the growth and spread of cancer, and suggest that enzymes catalyzing this processing could be targets for antimetastatic therapeutics.
SPARC expression was inversely associated with the degree of malignancy and it had a negative correlation with VEGF-C expression, VEGF-D expression, LVD and MVD which were actually higher for advanced tumors than for non-advanced tumors.
We have also demonstrated that the activating protein-1 (AP-1) family of transcription factors play a potentially critical role in the progression of gliomas by eliciting uncontrolled upregulation of VEGF-D and other compounds essential for cancer cell proliferation, tumorigenesis, and infiltration.