Functional analysis of an established mouse vascular endothelial cell line.
BACKGROUND
In vitrostudies using cell lines are useful for the understanding of cellular mechanisms. The purpose of our study is to develop a new immortalized aortic vascular endothelial cell (EC) line that retains endothelial characteristics and can facilitate the study of ECs.


METHODS
A mouse aortic vascular EC line (MAEC) was established from p53-deficient mouse aorta and cultured for over 100 passages. The expression of endothelial markers was assessed, and the function of this cell line was analyzed by tube formation and binding assays.


RESULTS
MAEC retained many endothelial properties such as cobblestone appearance, contact-inhibited growth, active uptake of acetylated low-density lipoprotein, existence of Weibel-Palade bodies and several EC markers. MAECs exhibited tube formation activity both in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, crucially, tumor necrosis factor alpha, an inflammatory cytokine, promoted lymphocyte adhesion to MAECs, suggesting that MAECs may facilitate the study of atherosclerosis and local inflammatory reactions in vitro.


CONCLUSIONS
We describe the morphological and cell biological characteristics of MAEC, providing strong evidence that it retained endothelial properties. This novel cell line can be a useful tool for studying the biology of ECs.
Nishiyama
Tatsuaki
T
Department of Pathology, Tsurumi University School of Dental Medicine, Yokohama, Japan.
Mishima
Kenji
K
Ide
Fumio
F
Yamada
Koichi
K
Obara
Kumi
K
Sato
Aki
A
Hitosugi
Noriko
N
Inoue
Hiroko
H
Tsubota
Kazuo
K
Saito
Ichiro
I
D000818:Animals; D001011:Aorta / Q000166:cytology*; D015415:Biomarkers; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques; D002461:Cell Line, Transformed / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D003593:Cytoplasm / Q000648:ultrastructure; D042783:Endothelial Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D008817:Mice, Mutant Strains; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D009569:Nitric Oxide / Q000378:metabolism; D052247:Nitric Oxide Synthase Type II / Q000235:genetics; D052250:Nitric Oxide Synthase Type III; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 / Q000235:genetics*; D019010:Vascular Cell Adhesion Molecule-1 / Q000378:metabolism; D020302:Weibel-Palade Bodies / Q000648:ultrastructure
D015415:Biomarkers; D016159:Tumor Suppressor Protein p53; D019010:Vascular Cell Adhesion Molecule-1; D009569:Nitric Oxide; D052247:Nitric Oxide Synthase Type II; D052250:Nitric Oxide Synthase Type III; C496315:Nos3 protein, mouse