Anti-angiogenic Activity of Ursolic Acid

우르솔릭산의 혈관형성 억제활성

Angiogenesis refers to the formation of new capillary blood vessels, or neovascularization occurring under various physical conditions, such as development of the embryo, formation of corpus luteum, wound healing and pathological conditions including tumor growth and metastases, hemangiomas, diabetic retinopathy, rheumatoid arthritis. There are many evidences that angiogenesis is important for the progressive growth of solid tumors and also permits the shedding of metastatic tumors from the primary site. Thus, treatment of angiogenesis inhibitors might be a novel strategy for tumor growth inhibition. Normal vascular endothelial cells are in a state of differentiation and angiogenic endothelial cells migrate and proliferate, and they subsequently differentiate into vessel-forming quiescent phenotype cells, Therfore, it was speculated that a modifier of cell differentiation could also affect angiogenesis. In order to identify new antiangiogenic factors, the research was conducted to estimate the inhibitory activities of cell differentiation agents by means of chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane(CAM) assay. Hence, we have established the CAM assay for the screening of antiangiogenic agents. Using the CAM assay, we found that ursolic acid, a tumor cell differentiation-inducing agent, showed a markedly inhibitory effect on chick embryonic angiogenesis.