Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Biomedical Science

First Advisor

Susan Lessner

Abstract

Angiogenesis is the process of new blood vessel development by endothelial cells from pre-existing vasculature; however, abnormal angiogenesis contributes to the pathogenesis of many disorders such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and chronic inflammation. Angiogenesis in atherosclerotic plaques contributes to their instability and therefore increases the risk of plaque rupture and thrombus formation. Sparstolonin B (SsnB) is a novel bioactive compound isolated from Sparganium stoloniferum, an herb that has been used historically in the Chinese herbal medicine "SanLeng" as an herbal remedy for the treatment of several inflammatory diseases. In this study, we have explored the anti-angiogenic properties of SsnB in vitro. In cell culture, SsnB induced rapid changes in the morphology of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). After 6 hours, SsnB induced endothelial cell actin stress fibers, increased cell perimeter/area ratio, and enhanced formation of focal adhesions. These effects occurred in a dose-dependent manner in which the maximum effect was at 100M SsnB. In addition, we have also analyzed early response gene expression in response to 100 M SsnB. Our data show that SsnB blocked the up-regulation c-Myc and c-Fos, which occurred in response to addition of vehicle control (DMSO). These results imply that alteration of endothelial cell morphology and change of early response genes regulation may play a role in the anti-angiogenic effects induced by SsnB.

Rights

© 2014, Marwa Belhaj

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