Immunologic detection of endothelial cells in human whole blood.

In this report we show that human endothelial cells (EC) can be detected in circulating blood by means of the EC-specific monoclonal antibody (MoAb) designated as CLB-HEC 19 and expressed quantitatively as number of cells per milliliter of whole blood. We first developed a method that was able to recover cultured human EC added to whole blood by Percoll density gradient centrifugation. The final recovery of the EC was 91.6% (SE = 0.65%). The EC were identified in the gradient subfractions by indirect immunofluorescence with the MoAb CLB-HEC 19. This method was then applied to the separation and characterization of EC or EC remnants from the whole arterial and venous blood taken from two groups of patients subjected to heart catheterization. Firstly, a preliminary blood screening of random samples was performed in a group of eight patients (group I) using a scoring evaluation for the presence of EC and the results were expressed as positivity index. Secondly, the complete blood screening of a group of ten patients (group II) was performed for the detection of immunofluorescent cells and the results were expressed as number of EC per milliliter of whole blood. Our results show in both group I and II a significant presence of EC in the blood after catheterization compared with their basal values. The minimal detectable concentration of EC was 0.06 cells/mL (SE = 0.057) of whole blood. We consider this technique as a suitable clinical test for the detection of EC injury in cardiovascular pathology.