Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Jun 1.
Published in final edited form as: Biomaterials. 2010 Mar 25;31(18):4987–4994. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2010.02.063

Figure 5. Bioactive VEGF is released from microparticles and can phosphorylate VEGFR2 in HUVEC.

Figure 5

(A) Ni-NTA microparticles loaded with His6-tagged vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) elicits a dose-dependent response in VEGF-receptor 2 (VEGFR2) phosphorylation following a 20 minute incubation. Representative blots of phospho-VEGFR2 and total-VEGFR2 shown; data are mean ± SEM from 3 separate experiments expressed as a fold-increase. (B) Ni-NTA microparticles that were not loaded with VEGF did not show activation of VEGFR2 at the doses tested. Representative blots of phospho-VEGFR2 and total-VEGFR2 shown. (C) Representative blots of transwell assay with human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) in the bottom well. VEGF-loaded microparticles added to the top well were able to activate VEGFR2 across a transwell membrane (3 μm pore size) at 1, 2, and 3h. NTA-functionalized microparticles not loaded with Ni+2 and incubated with His6-tagged VEGF did not activate cells over the same time course.