Neuroprotection: VEGF, IL-6, and clusterin: the dark side of the moon

Growth factors and their respective receptors are key regulators in development and homeostasis of the nervous system, and changes in the function, expression, or downstream signaling of growth factors are involved in many neuropathological disorders. Recently, research has yielded a rich harvest of information about molecules and gene, and currently the assumption "a gene-a protein", where each gene encodes the structure of a single protein, is becoming a paradox. In the past years, the discovery of synergic or antagonistic proteins deriving from the same gene is a novelty upsetting. In some way, the conventional function of proteins involved in DNA repair, cell death/growth induction, vascularization, and metabolism is inhibited or shifted toward other pathways by soluble mediators that orchestrate such change depending on the microenvironment conditions. In this chapter, we focus on the antithetic properties that proteins could exert, depending on the microenvironment that orchestrates the complex networks among proteins and their respective partners. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.