ISSN: 1449-1907International Journal of Medical Sciences
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Int J Med Sci 2014; 11(6):545-553. doi:10.7150/ijms.6994 This issue Cite
Research Paper
The Use of a Whole Animal Biophotonic Model as a Screen for the Angiogenic Potential of Estrogenic Compounds
1. Facility of Organismal and Cellular Imaging, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA;
2. Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA;
3. Department of Pathology and Population Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA;
4. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Entomology, and Soil Sciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA;
5. Department of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA.
Abstract
Background: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is essential for normal vascular growth and development during wound repair. VEGF is estrogen responsive and capable of regulating its own receptor, vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2). Several agricultural pesticides (e.g., methoxychlor) have estrogenic potential that can initiate inappropriate physiological responses in estrogenic-sensitive tissues following exposure in vivo. Thus, the current study was designed to determine whether the VEGFR-2-Luciferase (Luc) reporter transgenic mouse is a useful model for evaluating estrogenic tendencies of methoxychlor by monitoring wound healing via VEGFR-2-mediated gene expression using bioluminescence and real-time imaging technology.
Results: VEGFR-2-Luc gene activity peaked by d 7 (P<0.001) in all groups but was not different (P>0.05) between control and estrogen/methoxychlor exposed mice.
Conclusions: Changes in VEGFR-2-Luc gene activity associated with the dermal wound healing process were able to be measured via photonic emission. The increase in vasculature recruitment and formation is paralleled by the increase of VEGFR-2-Luc activity with a peak on day 7. However, estrogen/methoxychlor did not significantly alter wound healing mediated VEGFR-2-Luc gene expression patterns compared to controls. This suggests that the VEGFR-2-Luc transgenic mouse wound model tested in this study may not be optimal for use as a screen for the angiogenic potential of estrogenic compounds.
Keywords: VEGF, VEGFR-2, Biophotonics, Real-Time Imaging, Methoxychlor, Wound Healing.
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