Thrombospondin-1 and VEGF in inflammatory bowel disease.
OBJECTIVE
Angiogenesis is an important process in the pathogenesis of chronic inflammation. We aimed to study the angiogeneic balance in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) by evaluating the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1) on colonic epithelial cells, together with the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS).


METHODS
Twenty-one ulcerative colitis (UC), 14 Crohn's disease (CD), 11 colorectal cancer patients, and 11 healthy controls colonic biopsy samples were evaluated immunohistochemically.


RESULTS
The expressions of TSP-1, VEGF, and iNOS in UC and CD groups were higher than expression in healthy control group, all with statistical significance. However, in colorectal cancer group, VEGF and iNOS expressions were increased importantly, but TSP-1 expression was not statistically different from healthy control group's expression. Both TSP-1 and VEGF expressions were correlated with iNOS expression distinctly but did not correlate with each other.


CONCLUSIONS
Both pro-angiogeneic VEGF and antiangiogeneic TSP-1 expressions were found increased in our IBD groups, but in colorectal cancer group, only VEGF expression was increased. TSP-1 increases in IBD patients as a response to inflammatory condition, but this increase was not enough to suppress pathologic angiogenesis and inflammation in IBD.
Department of Gastroenterology, Sisli Etfal Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.
Canan
C
Alkim
Damlanur
D
Sakiz
Huseyin
H
Alkim
Ayten
A
Livaoglu
Tulin
T
Kendir
Huseyin
H
Demirsoy
Levent
L
Erdem
Nihat
N
Akbayir
Mehmet
M
Sokmen