VEGFA

VEGFA, abbreviated for vascular endothelial growth factor A, encodes a protein that is a member of the PDGF/VEGF growth factor family. VEGFA acts as a disulfide-linked homodimer and functions as a heparin-binding protein.
VEGFA is responsible for inducing proliferation and migration of vascular endothelial cells and plays an important role in physiological and pathological angiogenesis. Knockout of VEGFA in mice leads to abnormal embryonic blood vessel formation. A number of reports revealed that VEGFA is upregulated in many known tumors. Its expression is correlated with tumor stage and progression. The higher transcriptional levels of VEGFA are found in patients with POEMS syndrome, a rare paraneoplastic syndrome caused by a clone of aberrant plasma cells.
Allelic variants of VEGFA have been reported to be involved in microvascular complications of diabetes 1 (MVCD1) and atherosclerosis. Alternatively, spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been described. Alternative translation initiation from upstream non-AUG (CUG) codons results in additional isoforms. A C-terminally extended isoform is produced by use of an alternative in-frame translation termination codon via a stop codon read-through mechanism. This isoform is antiangiogenic. It's worth noting that Expression of some isoforms derived from the AUG start codon is regulated by a small upstream open reading frame. These reading frames are located within an internal ribosome entry site.
Entrez Gene ID: 7422
UniProt ID: P15692