Research progress on ocular animal models for angiogenesis

Increasing interest in developing reliable and reproducible models to study angiogenesis has emerged due to the large development of ocular neovascularization treatments.This review provides a summary of the principal ocular animal models for angiogenesis study.Models of anterior segment neovascularization include the corneal micropocket assay,used to study the influence of specific molecules/proteins in angiogenesis and corneal chemical or suture induced injury,which mimic more closely the complex nature of the human disease.Angiogenesis models of the posterior segment include the well known laser-induced injury of the choroid/Bruch's membrane as well as the oxygen induced retinopathy and models of injections of proangiogenic/inflammatory molecules.In addition,knockout or knock-in transgenic mice provide powerful tools in studying the role of specific proteins in angiogenesis. Key words: angiogenesis;  animal models;  basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) ;  vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)