OBJECTIVE Endothelial cell-monocyte cross talk is essential for vascular repair. Monocytes colocalize with endothelial cells forming a complex set of interactions distinct from the growth promoting cytokines secreted by differentiated macrophages. In the present work we examined the growth regulation and in vitro wound repair early after binding of monocytes to endothelial cells. METHODS AND ...

Antibodies to platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 (PECAM-1) facilitate targeted drug delivery to endothelial cells by "vascular immunotargeting." To define the targeting quantitatively, we investigated the endothelial binding of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to extracellular epitopes of PECAM-1. Surprisingly, we have found in human and mouse cell culture models that the endothelial bin...

BACKGROUND Systemic sclerosis is an autoimmune disease characterized by immunological abnormalities, vascular damage, and fibroblast proliferation. We have previously shown that a molecular mimicry mechanism links antibodies against the human-cytomegalovirus-derived protein UL94 to the pathogenesis of systemic sclerosis. The UL94 epitope shows homology with NAG-2, a surface molecule highly expr...

Vascular endothelium was investigated by indirect immunofluorescence and immunoautoradiography for the possible presence of spectrin-like molecules. Antibodies were raised against electrophoretically purified rat, rabbit, and bovine red blood cell spectrin and against rabbit brain fodrin. Antibody specificity was assessed by immunoblotting and double-diffusion technique. Homogenates of endothel...

background: one area of nanoscience deals with nanoscopic interactions between nanostructured materials and biological systems. to elucidate the effects of the substrate surface morphology and viscoelasticity on cell proliferation, fractal analysis was performed on endothelial cells cultured on nanocomposite samples based on silicone rubber (sr) and various concentrations of organomodified nano...

This paper shows that, in confluent human umbilical vein endothelial cell (EC) monolayers, the integrin heterodimers alpha 2 beta 1 and alpha 5 beta 1, but not other members of the beta 1 subfamily, are located at cell-cell contact borders and not at cellular free edges. Also the alpha v chain, but not its most common partner beta 3, that is widely expressed in EC cell-matrix junctions, is foun...

In resistance arteries, spread of hyperpolarization from the endothelium to the adjacent smooth muscle is suggested to be a crucial component of dilation resulting from endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF). To probe the role of endothelial gap junctions in EDHF-mediated dilation, we developed a method, which was originally used to load membrane impermeant molecules into cells in cu...

A 16 year old girl with a two year history of systemic sclerosis developed left axillary vein thrombosis. Prolonged euglobulin clot lysis time, anti-endothelial cell antibodies, and raised von Willebrand factor antigen were shown.