Abstract:

Retinal neovascularization is a common complication of proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and ischemic central retinal vein occlusion and other retinal diseases, which is leading cause of blindness to these diseases. Studies have shown that multiple factors involve in the angiogenesis, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), etc. APELIN is an endogenous ligand for the G protein-coupled receptor of  APJ, and widely distributes in various tissues, with a variety of biological functions. Recently, studies show that APELIN is a novel angiogenic factor, which has an important role in physiological and pathological angiogenesis, will provide a new target to anti-neovascularization.