ArticleMolecular biology reports2020
Intussusceptive angiogenesis in Covid-19: hypothesis on the significance and focus on the possible role of FGF2.
Article in Molecular biology reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- Principal component analysis of cytokine signature in COVID-19 and Long COVID.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
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- Increase of VEGF and Fibronectin expression and ultrastructural alterations of intercellular junctions in a swab negative patient after SARS-COV-2 infection.Virology journal · 2025Article
- Assessing the endothelium's role in COVID-19 severity using the HUVEC model.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Article
- Mechanisms of angiogenesis in tumour.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Review
- Vascular endothelial growth factor A: friend or foe in the pathogenesis of HIV and SARS-CoV-2 infections?Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2024Review
- Article
- Study on Potential Differentially Expressed Genes in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis by Bioinformatics and Next-Generation Sequencing Data Analysis.Biomedicines · 2023Article
- Discovery and systematic assessment of early biomarkers that predict progression to severe COVID-19 disease.Communications medicine · 2023Article
- Indian food habit & food ingredients may have a role in lowering the severity & high death rate from COVID-19 in Indians: findings from the first nutrigenomic analysis.The Indian journal of medical research · 2023Article
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- Anti-inflammatory effects of medications used for viral infection-induced respiratory diseases.Respiratory investigation · 2023Review
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- Focusing COVID-19-associated mucormycosis: a major threat to immunocompromised COVID-19.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2023Review
- Impaired VEGF-A-Mediated Neurovascular Crosstalk Induced by SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein: A Potential Hypothesis Explaining Long COVID-19 Symptoms and COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects?Microorganisms · 2022Review
- Computational exploration of the dual role of the phytochemical fortunellin: Antiviral activities against SARS-CoV-2 and immunomodulatory abilities against the host.Computers in biology and medicine · 2022Article
- SARS-CoV-2 and Endothelial Cells: Vascular Changes, Intussusceptive Microvascular Growth and Novel Therapeutic Windows.Biomedicines · 2022Review
- New developments in the biology of fibroblast growth factors.WIREs mechanisms of disease · 2022Review
- SARS-CoV-2 infection of human brain microvascular endothelial cells leads to inflammatory activation through NF-κB non-canonical pathway and mitochondrial remodeling.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2022Article
- SARS-CoV-2 infection of human brain microvascular endothelial cells leads to inflammatory activation through NF-κB non-canonical pathway and mitochondrial remodeling.Research square · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The interest on the role of angiogenesis in the pathogenesis and progression of human interstitial lung diseases is growing, with conventional sprouting (SA) and non-sprouting intussusceptive angiogenesis (IA) being differently represented in specific pulmonary injury patterns. The role of viruses as key regulators of angiogenesis is known for several years. A significantly enhanced amount of new vessel growth, through a mechanism of IA, has been reported in lungs of patients who died from Covid-19; among the angiogenesis-related genes, fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) was found to be upregulated. These findings are intriguing. FGF2 plays a role in some viral infections: the upregulation is involved in the MERS-CoV-induced strong apoptotic response crucial for its highly lytic replication cycle in lung cells, whereas FGF2 is protective against the acute lung injury induced by H1N1 influenza virus, improving the lung wet-to-dry weight ratio. FGF2 plays a role also in regulating IA, acting on pericytes (crucial for the formation of intraluminal pillars), and endothelium, and FGF2-induced angiogenesis may be promoted by inflammation and hypoxia. IA is a faster and probably more efficient process than SA, able to modulate vascular remodeling through pruning of redundant or inefficient blood vessels. We can speculate that IA might have the function of restoring a functional vascular plexus consequently to extensive endothelialitis and alveolar capillary micro-thrombosis observed in Covid-19. Anti-Vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) strategies are currently investigated for treatment of severe and critically ill Covid-19 patients, but also FGF2, and its expression and/or signaling, might represent a promising target.
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