VEGF148 ISOFORM, A TRUNCATED SPLICE VARIANT OF VEGF. VEGF HETERODIMERS AND THERAPEUTICAL USES THEREOF

摘要

There is provided a method for treating or preventing a disease in a mammalian patient comprising the step of either (i) inducing VEGF heterodimer formation in vivo; or (ii) administering a pre-formed VEGF heterodimer to the mammalian patient. The is provided a truncated splice variant of VEGF from human glomeruli, namely the VEFG 148 isoform, which has a high homology to the amino acid sequence encoded by VEGF exons 1 to 5, lacks exon 6 and has a 35bp deletion at the end of exon 7 which produces a frameshift and a premature stop codon at the start of exon 8.