VEGF and VEGFR-2 expression in human periodontal disease tissue

Objectives:

Angiogenesis is an important characteristic of inflammation and healing. It can influence the severity of periodontal inflammation because increased new vessels transport more inflammatory cells, chemical mediators and cytokines through inflammation. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a key regulator of blood vessel growth. We measured the expression of VEGF and its receptor VEGFR-2 in biopsy from periodontal patients.

Methods:

We use a quantitative real time PCR analysis, which easily quantify the expression levels of VEGF and VEGFR-2 mRNAs and also detect an immunohistochemical localization of the VEGFR-2 and VEGF in human periodontal diseased tissues and normal tissue to gain a comparative evaluation.

Results:

In periodontal diseased gingival, the VEGF mRNA expression were slightly higher than the normal gingival but not significantly different between the 2 groups (p=0.32). However, the ratio of VEGF for VEGFR (VEGF/VEGFR) in periodontal diseased gingival were lower than the normal gingival(p<0.5). Immunohistochemical localization of VEGF was not significantly different but VEGFR was highly expressed in periodontitis than normal tissue.

Conclusions:

It is indicated that the ratio of VEGF for VEGFR (VEGF/VEGFR) may depend on the possibility to be aggravated or healing the periodontal disease. It may help the convalescence diagnosis in periodontal disease from small piece of biopsy from patients in periodontal surgery.