FIG. 4.

Human VEGF₁₆₅ induces only normal angiogenesis despite high levels of expression. (A) Whole-mount lectin staining (brown) of vascular networks induced by control cells (Ctrl CD8) and mV and hV clonal populations. Myoblast engraftment was tracked by X-Gal staining (blue). Four weeks after myoblast implantation, low murine and human VEGF levels induced only morphologically normal capillaries. High murine VEGF levels gave rise to aberrant angioma-like vascular structures, whereas even higher levels of human VEGF (clone hV_high2) induced only normal angiogenesis (n=5–8 for all groups). Vessels in the human low VEGF panel appear darker because they still contain some red blood cells. Size bar=50 μm in all panels. (B) Quantification of the vessel length density (VLD) in vascular networks induced by the selected clones. ***p<0.001. Color images available online at www.liebertpub.com/hgtb