Angiogenesis is a multi-step process that leads to the formation of new blood vessels from preexisting capillaries and is a key event in several physiological and pathophysiological processes including the tumor growth and development of metastases. Several in vitro and in vivo techniques have been developed for studying angiogenesis. The Rabbit Cornea Assay was one of the first, created by Gimbrone and coworkers. The main objective of this work was to describe the method of inducing angiogenesis in the rabbit cornea, by means of surgical polymethylmetacrylate pellet implantation containing a basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF). Pellets with bFGF 0.1 mug were implanted in one cornea, while in the contralateral cornea pellets without bFGF was implanted as controls. The angiogenic activity was expressed as an angiogenic index resulted from the counting of the vessel number and the measurement of their length in millimeters. The results showed that bFGF induced a significant vascular growth into the corneal stroma at the sixth day after the pellet implantation reaching the maximal activity in the fifteenth day. The pellets with PMMA alone, did not stimulate a significant vascularization. This method can be readily implemented for the study of the pathophysiology in the angiogenic process and for the screening of new anti-angiogenic drugs.
Cornea; Angiogenesis; Neovascularization; Fibroblast growth factor; Rabbits
