Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in neurodevelopment and regeneration:VEGF is a well-known factor that promotes vascularization and angiogenesis.Besides this it participates in the pathogenesis of several diseases,such as colorectal carcinoma,lung cancer or diabetic retinopathy.Within the last decade,VEGF has been successfully integrated into the treatment of such diseases,for example as a therapy for colorectal cancer with the VEGF-receptor (VEGFR)-inhibitor axitinib.VEGF effects in those diseases are primarily exerted via neovascularization and angiogenesis,which are mainly initiated by hypoxia to support tumor growth.VEGF is expressed by a high number of different cells,amongst others its expression was confirmed in different tumor cell-lines as well as in common,physiological cells.A well known initiator of VEGF (over-) expression is the hypoxia inducible factor (HIF),which is a transcriptional factor,leading to an enhanced VEGF expression.