Endothelial cell cycle kinetics. Changes in culture and correlation with endothelial properties.

Endothelial cells in culture have emerged as a model system for evaluation of endothelial properties. Culture conditions may affect expression of these endothelial properties or growth characteristics. Therefore, we evaluated cell cycle kinetics, prostacyclin release, and angiotensin-converting enzyme activity in primary and subcultured cells from bovine pulmonary and systemic vessels. Prostacyclin release was highly variable during passage in culture. However, release following stimulation with ionophore A23187 declined with serial passage. Angiotensin-converting enzyme activity also declined with repeated subculturing. Greater than 10% of primary confluent bovine endothelial cells were cycling compared to 2 to 8% of human umbilical vein endothelial cells. With passage in culture, 25% of bovine endothelial cells were cycling at confluence. Occasional strains of subcultured bovine endothelium arrested in G2 but would reenter G1 upon subculturing. Exposure to trypsin did not appear to contribute to this phenomenon. These studies have demonstrated variability in endothelial cell properties and growth characteristics during in vitro propagation. The existence of this variability must be considered when studying properties or responses of subcultured endothelium.