Blockade of angiogenin by thalidomide inhibits the tumorigenesis of murine hemangioendothelioma.

Thalidomide, a well-known immunomodulatory compound, has an anti-angiogenic activity, which may be utilized for the treatment of angiogenesis-related diseases such as hemangioendothelioma. The aim of present study was to investigate both the anti-tumor role of thalidomide on hemangioendothelioma and the underlying mechanism. By using the xenograft mouse model, we found that thalidomide can inhibit the progression of hemangioendothelioma in vivo. Moreover, thalidomide shows no effect on the proliferation of hemangioendothelioma-derived cells (EOMA), but significantly impairs the pro-angiogenic capacity of the EOMA cells in vitro. By qRT-PCR screening, we observed that the expression of angiogenin was downregulated by thalidomide treatment. We next performed tissue array analysis, and found a positive correlation between angiogenin expression level and hemangioendothelioma occurrence in patients. Moreover, we confirmed that the anti-tumoral role of thalidomide is dependent on angiogenin expression both in vivo and in vitro. Taken together, we concluded that thalidomide can inhibit the progression of hemangioendothelioma by downregulating the expression of proangiogenic factor angiogenin, therefore can be used as a potent therapeutic to treat hemangioendothelioma. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.