The effect of vascular endothelial growth factor antagonist peptide (VGB4) on breast tumor growth suppression in vivo

Tumor-secreted vascular endothelial growth factors binding to their receptors on endothelial cells surface play as the key roles in vascular permeability and tumor angiogenesis. In this study, VEGF antagonistic peptide was designed in order to interfere with the binding VEGF to VEGFRs and inactivates their downstream signaling pathways and hence suppresses angiogenesis with high efficiency. In this study, 4T1 tumor allograft was prepared as a murine breast cancer model in BALB/c mice. After subcutaneous transplantation of tumor fragments into the animals, daily intraperitoneal injection of VGB4 at the different doses of (0.25, 1, 2.5, 5 and 10 mg/kg) was performed for two weeks. Anti-tumor potential of different doses of VGB4 was statistically examined in compare to control. VGB4 peptide reduced tumor growth dose-dependently and that the increase in the concentration from 5 mg/kg to 10 mg/kg had no significant inhibitory effect on tumor growth. Therefore, 5 mg/kg is the best effective dose of VGB4 in the prevention of growth rate of tumors. VGB4 peptide has a significant inhibitory effect on 4T1murine mammary carcinoma tumor growth. Antitumor activity of VGB4 indicates that VGB4 could be considered as an adequate candidate for cancer therapy