Thromboplastin synthesis in endothelial cells.

Endothelial cells (EC) in culture produce a procoagulant identified as thromboplastin when stimulated with 12-O-tetradecanoyl-phorbol-13-acetate, phytohemagglutinin, endotoxin, thrombin, histamine or epinephrine. Inducible thromboplastin generation most likely depends on de novo synthesis of RNA and the protein component of thromboplastin, apoprotein III. It is further probably regulated by intracellular mechanisms involving cAMP, transmethylation and calcium ions. The EC thromboplastin response is enhanced in lymphocyte-EC and platelet-EC cocultures and thromboplastin becomes partly available on the cell surface. Levels of procoagulant activity are reached which clearly may be of clinical importance if similar levels appear in vivo.