Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 7.1: In vitro tubulogenesis of tumor-derived endothelial cells
(TECs). Morphometry of the capillary-like network formed in 12 h after cell
incubation.
diseases, vasculopathies, degenerative disorders, and tissue injury occurring
in ischemia. Indeed, vascular formation is a pivotal transition also in cancer
development. In fact, by providing the nutrition and oxygen, it allows malig-
nant cells to grow and remain viable, and, eventually, to cause metastases and
enter in the circulatory system [65]. Moreover, it is also active in determining
the translation of dormant metastases to an aggressive status [64]. The switch
to the angiogenic phenotype leads therefore to a fast progression and to a
potentially fatal stage of the disease and represents an important target for
therapeutic interventions in most types of malignancies.
However, despite the major progresses and promising successes achieved
over the past few years in anti-angiogenic pharmacological therapies, several
limitations still occur due to different factors, as commented in [64, 65, 129]
and references therein.
A continuous effort in the development of biomedical therapies is advanced
by several in vitro models, which are providing a deeper understanding of
selected underpinning molecular and cellular events coordinated to control
tumor-induced vessel formation, as reviewed in [9, 57, 282, 285, 358]. One of
the best known is the tubulogenic experiment, the laboratory counterpart of
in vivo vasculogenesis.
 
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