Review Article Cytokines and Angiogenesis in the Corpus Luteum

Copyright © 2013 António M. Galvão et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In adults, physiological angiogenesis is a rare event, with few exceptions as the vasculogenesis needed for tissue growth and function in female reproductive organs. Particularly in the corpus luteum (CL), regulation of angiogenic process seems to be tightly controlled by opposite actions resultant from the balance between pro- and antiangiogenic factors. It is the extremely rapid sequence of events that determines the dramatic changes on vascular and nonvascular structures, qualifying the CL as a great model for angiogenesis studies. Using the mare CL as a model, reports on locally produced cytokines, such as tumor necrosis facto