An In Vitro Toxicity Assay for Human Endothelial Cells
Cultured human endothelial cells can replace living animals in studying the toxic role of noxious agents in the pathogenesis of vascular diseases and in the elucidation of the mechanism of action of protective drugs. Preliminary data are presented which examine the effects that oxidative stress produces on human endothelial cells in vitro. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells were subjected to an anoxia-re-oxygenation treatment and tested for the production of Super Oxide Dismutase (SOD)-inhibitable superoxide radicals. The results show that under our experimental conditions endothelial cells produce oxygen-free radicals and that the generation reaches a maximum after an anoxic challenge of 20 minutes. We conclude that the in vitro system presented in this paper could be a suitable tool for further studies on the effects of oxidative stress on the vascular endothelium, which mimics the in vivo conditions of re-perfusion after heart ischemia.