Importance of a collagen substratum for stimulation of capillary endothelial cell proliferation by tumour angiogenesis factor.

Tumour extracts were obtained from rat Walker 256 carcinoma and examined for the presence of tumour angiogenesis factor (TAF) in vivo before being used in tissue culture experiments. Capillary endothelial cells derived from cow brain white matter were used to study the effects of TAF-containing tumour extracts on cell proliferation in vitro. The cells were grown on two types of substrata: (1) plastic tissue culture dishes and (2) hydrated gels made of rat tail tendon type I collagen. Human platelets or platelet-released factors were introduced into the system because of the many inter-relationships known to exist between platelets, collagen and endothelial cells. If trypsin was used during the preparation of TAT, the resulting batches stimulated endothelial cell proliferation only when the cells were growing on a collagen substratum and either platelets or platelet-released factors were present in the growth medium. If incubation with trypsin was omitted from the TAF extraction procedure, the resulting batches stimulated cell growth both on plastic and on collagen. A synergistic interaction also occurred between these TAF-containing tumour extracts and platelet-released factors. This effect was always more marked when the cells were growing on collagen than when on plastic. These data suggest that the nature of the substratum affects the response of the endothelial cells to TAF and to platelet-released factors.