Angiostatic and angiogenic factors.

Both diminution of angiostatic and increment of angiogenic factors seem to contribute to neovascularization in the eye under pathologic conditions. They are presented here separately. The involved proteins can change their role during the process of neovascularization from promoters to inhibitors and vice versa. Angiostatic factors can be divided into passive, active, unspecific and specific ones.Some of them act during neovascularization as members of feedback loops by modifying the effects of their angiogenic counterparts. Among the angiogenic factors VEGF is the most important.Nevertheless other stimulating proteins exist in large numbers. Together with their static counterparts they form a complex network which controls neovascularization under physiologic as well aspathologic conditions.