Modulation Of PGI2-Like Activity Of Human Endothelial Cells By An Extracellular Collagen Matrix

Human umbilical vein endothelial cells were grown on several artificial matrices including collagen and on unmodified plastic dishes. Freeze thaw preparations of confluent monolayer endothelial cell cultures were assayed for PGI2-like activity by testing for inhibition of platelet a88regation. The cells grown on a collagen matrix expressed slightly less PGI2-like activity initially compared to the cells grown on plastic. When the PGI2like activity of the cell lysates was examined over a period of three hours after the initial preparation, endothelial cells grown on a collagen matrix exhibited a more rapid loss of activity. Preliminary quantitative evaluations suggest that lysates derived from cells grown on unmodified plastic retained 75% PGI2 like activity at 15 min, at which point collagen grown cells exhibited essentially no PGI2-like activity. Furthermore, as shown in the figure, under identical experimental conditions, cell lysates obtained from endothelial cells grown on unmodified plastic continued to express approximately 50% of the initial PGI2-like activity after one hour. Since addition of purified PGI2 or cell lysates in vitro to the collagen coating used as tissue culture substrate failed to cause any significant loss of platelet aggregation inhibitory activity beyond the normal rate of decay of PGI2 it appears likely that the reduction of PGI2-like activity may be associated with changes in the substrate collagen, possibly effected by the endothelial cell layer. Alternatively, the reduction of activity may be related to differences in the endothelial cells caused by growth on the collagen substrate.