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I'm currently in high school and I am working on a cancer research project. My project consists of a cancer, and different ways to treat it. I have a set of benign tumor and I was thinking of immediate way of treating it without using a drug like Taxol to destroy parts of the cell is to simply remove the tumor.

However, I remembered learning about a 1 1/2 years ago about a substance that tumors release to stimulate the growth of blood vessels towards them, but this same substance suppresses the release of itself by another tumor (hopefully this makes some sense). I made some drawings that are attached here:

Scenario 1: The 1st tumor in the blood flow releases an unknown substance, which promotes blood vessel growth, but suppresses the release of the same substance from another tumor behind it.

enter image description here

Scenario 2: The 1st tumor is removed, and now the 2nd tumor starts to release the substance, because the 1st tumor's release is not suppressing the 2nd tumor's release anymore.

enter image description here

Does anyone know the name of this substance, and can someone help me learn more about it? Thanks.

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2 Answers 2

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One very important signal for angiogenesis are the Vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) (a small group of ~5 similar proteins). They generally promote generation of new blood vessels & migration of these towards the source of VEGF expression.
Blocking VEGF signalling (mostly be blocking the receptors with antibodies) has been a pretty good strategy in cancer treatment, since tumors can't grow over a certain size without blood supply by new grown vessels.

However, I am not aware of any blood-vessel specific signalling mechanism that stops it's own expression at a secondary site. (This may be possible though, especially for specific signals)

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Galectins are family of beta-galactoside-binding proteins implicated in modulating cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions. These proteins are produced by tumor cells and promote angiogenesis.

These secreted Galectins are used by endothelial cells to enhance migration and proliferation. And play various roles during development of tumor such as cellular adhesion, cell mobility, tumor-induced angiogenesis, and apoptosis.

Via: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5855652/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27649167

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