AIMS AND BACKGROUND: Human malignant melanoma is a very aggressive and highly 
angiogenesis-dependent tumor. Basic fibroblast growth factor and angiogenin are 
the potentially important angiogenic factors for melanoma progression and 
metastasis. Many studies have mainly focused on how they induce angiogenesis. In 
the present study, we investigated the effects of basic fibroblast growth factor 
on the expression of angiogenin and melanoma cell growth.
METHODS AND STUDY DESIGN: Angiogenin mRNA and protein expression were 
investigated by means of semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase 
chain reaction assay and western blotting. We analyzed cell proliferation using 
MTT, flow cytometry and soft agar assay. Immunofluorescence staining was applied 
to investigate co-localization and nuclear translocation.
RESULTS: We found that basic fibroblast growth factor negatively affected the 
expression of angiogenin in A375 cells. The result showed that down-regulation 
of basic fibroblast growth factor induced decreased cell proliferation ofA375 
cells, and in basic fibroblast growth factor up-regulated cells, cell 
proliferation was increased. We demonstrated that basic fibroblast growth factor 
protein was co-localized with angiogenin and that it underwent nuclear 
translocation in A375 cells.
CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that there is a cooperation mechanism between 
basic fibroblast growth factor and angiogenin in A375 cells, and the cooperation 
mechanism affects the progress of tumor cell proliferation and angiogenesis.