Angiogenesis induced by degradation products of hyaluronic acid.

Partial degradation products of sodium hyaluronate produced by the action of testicular hyaluronidase induced an angiogenic response (formation of new blood vessels) on the chick chorioallantoic membrane. Neither macromolecular hyaluronate nor exhaustively digested material had any angiogenic potential. Fractionation of the digestion products established that the activity was restricted to hyaluronate fragments between 4 and 25 disaccharides in length.