PEDF - A Noninhibitory Serpin with Neurotrophic Activity

Abstract

The pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) is a glycoprotein with a molecular weight of 50 kDa belonging to the noninhibitory serpin family. It regulates several physiological processes, such as stimulation of retinoblastoma cell differentiation into neuron cells, and facilitation of the growth and viability of photoreceptor cells and neurons of the central nervous system. Moreover, this factor protects neuronal cells against apoptosis. PEDF is not only a neurotrophic factor, but also a natural angiogenesis inhibitor. This protein, as well as its biologically active fragments, possesses significant neuroprotective, neurotrophic, and antiangiogenic capabilities. The precise molecular mechanisms underpinning the effects of PEDF are still not quite clear. However, this protein generates great interest as a promising drug for the therapy of a wide range of neurodegenerative, ophthalmological, and oncological diseases. This review is a summary of what is known today about the structural features, biochemical properties, and multimodal functions of PEDF.

Transplantation of Human Urine-Derived Stem Cells Transfected with Pigment Epithelium-Derived Factor to Protect Erectile Function in a Rat Model of Cavernous Nerve Injury

“…It was first discovered in the culture medium of human fetal retinal pigment epithelial cells as a neurotrophic factor 22 . Recent studies have shown that PEDF is widely expressed throughout fetal and adult tissues and has multiple important functions, including differentiation, neuroprotective effects, and antiangiogenic effects on different cells or tissues 23 . Our previous study demonstrated that the insufficient secretion of PEDF within the cavernous tissue was involved in CNIED 24 .…”

Neurotrophic Effect of Adipose Tissue‐Derived Stem Cells on Erectile Function Recovery by Pigment Epithelium‐Derived Factor Secretion in a Rat Model of Cavernous Nerve Injury

“…Although PEDF promotes the apoptosis of endothelial cells, it exerts a synergistic proliferative effect on endothelial cells with VEGF [ 24 ]. Current studies shows that PEDF is widely expressed throughout fetal and adult tissues and has multiple important functions including differentiation, neuroprotection, and antiangiogenic effects on different cells or tissues [ 25 ]. Recently, Vigneswara et al demonstrated that PEDF has neuroprotective and axogenic effects on retinal ganglion cells in an optic nerve crush injury model [ 26 ].…”

Accelerating Universe with spacetime torsion but without dark matter and dark energy

“…The present Letter is devoted to the discussion of possible a solution of DE-and DM-problems in the frame of the Poincaré gauge theory of gravity (PGTG) (see [8,9,10,11]), which is a natural generalization of GR and which offers opportunities that can solve the principal problems of Einstein gravitational theory (see [12,13] and references herein). The PGTG is based on well-known and acceptable physical principles including the local gauge invariance principle, and it is the gravitation theory in 4-dimensional physical spacetime with the structure of the Riemann-Cartan continuum.…”

“…By using sufficiently general expression of L g regular isotropic cosmology including inflationary cosmology was built and investigated in the frame of PGTG (see [17,18,19,20] and references herein). As it was shown, the character of gravitational interaction by certain physical conditions in the frame of PGTG is changed, and in the case of usual gravitating matter with positive values of energy density and pressure the gravitational interaction can be repulsive [13,17,19] that offers opportunities to solve principal problems of GR, in particular, the problem of the beginning of the Universe in time in the past (problem of cosmological singularity). The possible solution of DE-problem in the frame of PGTG was discussed in [20].…”