Differences in functional activity of cultivated human vascular endothelium cells derived from various donors

The endothelia of blood vessels fulfill multiple functions in an organism under physiological or pathological conditions. It is possible to model the processes that take place in the vascular endothelium on cultivated endothelial cells. Unlike permanent cell lines, research on primary cell cultures may lead to inconsistent results. In this work, endothelium cultures derived from umbilical cords of 20 donors have been compared for markers that characterize the functional activities of endothelium. It was found that, after 3 h in culture, it was possible to divide cultures into two groups, i.e., high — and low-expressing markers. An analysis of cytokines showed that the level of spontaneous production of IL-1 β in groups did not vary in 24 and 48 h, whereas levels of IL-6 and IL-8 production were increased at 24 and 48 h, but the difference between groups was not evident. TNFα production during cultivation was only increased in the low-expressing group. The amount of sP-selectin and sE-selectin in cultural medium was only enhanced in low-producing cultures, whereas the increase in sICAM-1 during cultivation was observed in highly productive cultures. The increase in sPECAM-1 was revealed in both high- and low-reproducing cultures and the differences between the groups were retained. The level of sVE-cadherin in the culture medium remained unchanged throughout cell cultivation. The levels of nitrite in the culture medium, which reflect the amount of NO, was augmented in all cultures and the difference between the groups was retained. The concentration of endothelin-1 was increased; however, in culture media of various cultures, its amounts were similar; therefore, it was not possible to create groups that reflect the level of its production. The level of von Willebrand factor in culture medium was increased during the cultivation of both groups; however, the difference between groups was lost. The level of matrix metalloproteinase-1 in culture medium was increased during cell cultivation. Thus, endothelial cultures from various donors differ in their expression of functional activity markers and, therefore, characterize the properties of donor cells. The results obtained are helpful to model the processes that take place in the vascular endothelium taking into account the specific features of the cultures and make it possible to better interpret the results obtained on the primary culture of the endothelium.