Submit Article |Resources | Link to us | Sitemap | Search | Language
Back to Home
Home >> Biotechnology and Healthcare >> Growth Factors
Back to Home

Growth Factors
- Growth factors belong to the group of proteins called cytokines; they can alter cell production, organogenesis, and disease susceptibility in animals. The effect produced by a growth factor will mainly depend on the presence of other growth factors, the target cells and their receptors on target cells.

The nomenclature of cytokines is confusing and terms like interleukins, growth factors, colony stimulating factors, etc. are used often for a single protein. The term interleukin is the preferred one and new leucocyte products are designated by this name followed by a number, e.g., interleukin-13.

The various growth factors can be grouped into the following families:

(i) insulin like growth factors (IGF, e.g., IGF-I and IGF-II),
(ii) nerve growth factors (NGF),
(iii) epidermal growth factors (EGF),
(iv) transforming growth factor β (TGF- β),
(v) platelet derived growth factors (PDGF),

(vi) fibroblast growth factors (FGFs),
(vii) hepatocyte growth factors (HGF), and
(viii) haemopoietic growth factors (at least 16 cytokines; affect production and function of blood cells).

Many of the growth factors have been approved for treatment of human diseases. Erythropoietin (EPO) is used on a considerable scale for the treatment of anaemia. EPO is also used to stimulate red blood cell production in kidney dialysis or cancer patients. Interleukin-2, in conjunction with LAK cells, is being used for cancer therapy.

Similarly, granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor and granulocyte colony stimulating factor are used to accelerate neutrophil recovery after chemotherapy or bone marrow transplantation. Several other growth factors have been/are likely to be approved for similar and other applications.

 

 
Submit Article |Resources | Link to us | Sitemap | Search | Language
English|Français|Español|Deutsch|Italiano|Portugues|Japanese|Korean|Sim-Chinese| Language