Dietary proteins and angiogenesis

Abstract

Both defective and persistent angiogenesis are linked to pathological situations in the adult. Compounds able to modulate angiogenesis have a potential value for the treatment of such pathologies. Several small molecules present in the diet have been shown to have modulatory effects on angiogenesis. This review presents the current state of knowledge on the potential modulatory roles of dietary proteins on angiogenesis. There is currently limited available information on the topic. Milk contains at least three proteins for which modulatory effects on angiogenesis have been previously demonstrated. On the other hand, there is some scarce information on the potential of dietary lectins, edible plant proteins and high protein diets to modulate angiogenesis.

Figure 1

(Left) Schematic representation of the crystal structure of murine angiogenin-2 at a resolution of 1.64 Å. The file with pdb ID 3zbv was retrieved from protein data bank [16] and visualized with Open Astex Viewer maintaining the protein on a black background and representing the protein surface in grey with a 30% of opacity. (Right) Schematic representation of the available model of bovine angiogenin-2 obtained by homology modeling, based in the crystal structure of bovine angiogenin-1 as a template sharing 58% of sequence identity. The file with psi ID P80929 was retrieved from protein model portal [17] and visualized with Open Astex Viewer maintaining the protein on a black background.

Figure 2

Schematic representation of the 3-D structures of bovine hololactoferrin at a resolution of 2.8 Å (left) and human apolactoferrin at a resolution of 2.0 Å (right). The files with pdb ID 1blf (bovine hololactoferrin) and 1cb6 (human apolactoferrin) were retrieved from protein data bank [16] and visualized with Open Astex Viewer maintaining proteins on a black background and representing protein surfaces in grey with a 30% of opacity.

Figure 3

Schematic representation of the 3-D structure of bovine lactoferricin in solution solved by NMR. The file with pdb ID 1lfc was retrieved from protein data bank [16] and visualized with Open Astex Viewer maintaining the protein on a black background and representing the protein surface in grey with a 30% of opacity.

Figure 4

Schematic representation of the crystal structure of the C2 domain of bovine lactadherin at a resolution of 1.67 Å. The file with pdb ID 3bng was retrieved from protein data bank [16] and visualized with Open Astex Viewer maintaining the protein on a black background and representing the protein surface in grey with a 30% of opacity.