Fig. 4. Elastin-derived peptide-mediated angiogenesis is triggered by occupancy of S-Gal (EBP). (A) Representative photomicrographs of capillary-like structure from HUVECs cultured on matrigel for 14 hours in the absence or presence of elastin-derived peptides (100 ng/ml KE or 200 ng/ml VGVAPG peptide). Cells were also concomitantly incubated in the absence or presence of lactose (10^-4 M) or V14 peptide (10 µg/ml). (B) Semi-quantitative evaluation of pseudotube formation was performed as in Fig. 1. Results, each based on ten randomly selected fields, are expressed as mean±s.d. of four experiments. Insert shows a western blot analysis of EBP from cell extracts of fibroblasts (FC), HUVECs and HMECs using polyclonal antibodies directed against the binding sequence of elastin (V14 peptide) on EBP. ^**P<0.01; ^***P<0.001.