Modulation of the tumor microenvironment for gastrointestinal cancer treatment

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25861218
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Digestive surgery
• Research Institution: Tokyo Women's Medical University
• Principal Investigator: Kitahara Shuji 東京女子医科大学, 医学部, 助教 (40510235)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 腫瘍血管新生 / 腫瘍微小環境 / 消化器癌 / VASH2 / Apcマウス / Normalization

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Vasohibin-2 has been identified as an extrinsic and vascular endothelial growth factor independent angiogenic factor that is highly expressed in tumor cells. In the present study, we aimed to find whether pre-existing vascular changes can be used to predict tumor transformation as benign or malignant. We sought to characterize the microvascular changes and tumor development in the intestinal tract of ApcMin/+ mice and the ApcMin/+/Vash2-/- mice. ApcMin/+/Vash2-/- mice showed a significant decrease in the number of polyps in the intestine. In addition, functional tumor blood vessels were decreased, and pericyte coverage tumor vessels were increased. On the other hand, the expression of Epiregulin and IL-6 family was down-regulated in ApcMin/+/Vash2-/- mice. And also, the M2 like Macrophage was decreased in tumors of ApcMin/+/Vash2-/- mice. These results indicated that VASH2 regulates tumor onset in the gastrointestinal tract by changing tumor microenvironment.

Free Research Field

腫瘍生物学