Antigen Presentation by a Continuous Human Microvascular Endothelial Cell Line, HMEC-1 to Human T Cells

Abstract

Endothelial cells line the vessels and lymphatics of the body, acting as a barrier between the blood and extravascular tissue. These cells are, therefore, in a prime position to play a role in lymphocyte activation. Indeed, it has been shown that primary endothelial cells in culture are capable of presenting particulate and soluble antigens to T cells and that this response is not dependent on macrophages. Recently, we developed an immortalized line of human microvascular endothelial cells, CDC/EU.HMEC-1 (HMEC-1). This endothelial line has the advantage not only of being devoid of contaminating cells but also of being a continuous cell line and therefore not subject to a restricted number of useful passages. The focus of this study was to determine whether HMEC-1 cells (like primary endothelial cells) could present antigen to T cells in the absence of macrophages. We demonstrate that a cloned and purified endothelial cell line can independently provide all the necessary signals for antigen-specific T-cell activation.

Desmoplakin is required for microvascular tube formation in culture

“…The two cell lines, HMEC-1 (Ades et al, 1992;Pruckler et al, 1993;Bosse et al, 1993;Xu et al, 1994) and C166 , were specifically chosen because: (1) both form microvascular tubes beginning ~5 hours after plating onto a thin layer of matrigel; (2) each cell line has been well characterized as behaving like and containing capillaryspecific markers; (3) both have been immortalized, allowing for long-term analysis (>10 days) of microvascular tubes; (4) analysis of tube formation in endothelial cell lines from two different species and from two different organ structures (human dermal tissue for HMEC-1 and mouse yolk sac for C166 cells) would support or refute an argument of universality for DP function in capillaries.…”

“…When cultured on matrigel and treated with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), both HMEC-1 cells and C166 cells combine to form microvascular tubes with similar dimensions and markers as capillaries, making them a good in vitro model for investigating aspects of vasculo-and angiogenesis (Haar and Ackerman, 1971;Ades et al, 1992;Pruckler et al, 1993;Bosse et al, 1993;Xu et al, 1994;Lu et al, 1996;Wang et al, 1996).…”

Endothelial inflammation: the role of differential expression of N-deacetylase/N-sulphotransferase enzymes in alteration of the immunological properties of heparan sulphate

“…This was followed by an examination of changes in the potential of these cells to bind exogenous RANTES at their apical surface and subsequent analysis of changes in the biological activity of this chemokine. The HMEC-1 cell line was chosen for this work as it provides a reproducible system which has previously been validated to model aspects of the immunobiology of microvascular endothelium including the uniform response to proinflammatory cytokines (Goebeler et al, 1997) and the presentation of antigens to specific T cells (Bosse et al, 1993). In addition, HMEC-1 cells are already known to use cell surface HS to bind exogenous proteins (Robinson et al, 2002).…”

Inflammation-promoting activity of HMGB1 on human microvascular endothelial cells

“…24,25 HMEC-1 cells were grown and maintained in endothelial basal medium (EBM; Clonetics, Walkersville, MD) supplemented with epidermal growth factor (10 ng/mL), hydrocortisone (1 g/mL), penicillin (100 U/mL), streptomycin (100 g/mL), amphotericin (250 ng/mL), and 10% FCS. Primary human microvascular lung endothelial cells (HMLECs; Clonetics) were maintained in EGM-2 MV Bullekit System (Clonetics).…”