Abstract
Malignant tumours secrete factors that enable them to commandeer their own blood supply (angiogenesis), and blocking the action of these factors can inhibit tumour growth. But because tumours may become resistant to treatments that target individual angiogenic factors by switching over to other angiogenic molecules1,2, a cocktail of multiple anti-angiogenic agents should be more effective. Here we show that herceptin3, a monoclonal antibody against the cell-surface receptor HER2 (for human epidermal growth factor receptor-2; ref. 4), induces normalization and regression of the vasculature in an experimental human breast tumour that overexpresses HER2 in mice, and that it works by modulating the effects of different pro- and anti-angiogenic factors. As a single agent that acts against multiple targets, herceptin, or drugs like it, may offer a simple alternative to combination anti-angiogenic treatments.
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The study reported in this paper was in part supported by Genentech.
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brief communications is intended to provide a forum for both brief, topical reports of general scientific interest and technical discussion of recently published material of particular interest to non-specialist readers. Priority will be given to contributions that have fewer than 500 words, 10 references and only one figure. Detailed guidelines are available on Nature's website (http://www.nature.com) or on request from nature@nature.com
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Izumi, Y., Xu, L., di Tomaso, E. et al. Herceptin acts as an anti-angiogenic cocktail. Nature 416, 279–280 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/416279b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/416279b
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