Date of Award

Spring 5-2002

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Honors College

Department

Biology

First Advisor

Wesley Gray

Second Advisor

Joyce W. O'Rourke

Third Advisor

Beverly Wade

Abstract

Angiostatin is a proteolytic fragment of plasminogen that inhibits angiogenesis. It destroys newly formed capillaries and causes tumors to stop growing, shrink, or disappear altogether. We sought to determine if angiostatin could be produced from plasminogen by urokinase enzyme. We hypothesized that if angiostatin is produced, it could be an inhibitor of endothelial cell growth. To test this idea, plasminogen was purified by affinity chromatography using a sepharose-lysine column. Then, it was incubated with urokinase and 10% sodium azide. In order to produce angiostatin, samples were taken out at different time periods and analyzed on SDS-Page Gel electrophoresis gel designated to detect angiostatin. A Western Blot analysis prove that angiostatin was indeed present after plasminogen. We then examined angiostatin activity to determine if angiostatin inhibits endothelial cell growth. We demonstrated that angiostatin does indeed inhibit endothelial cell growth at the concentration produced [rom plasminogen. Thus our results showed that plasminogen can be converted to angiostatin by urokinase and angiostatin has shown inhibitory activity on endothelial cell proliferation.

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