Leucocyte Endothelial Cell Adhesion: a Study comparing Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells and the Endothelial Cell Line EA‐hy‐926

EA‐hy‐926 is a cell line produced by hybridizing human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and the epithelial cell line A549. To establish whether EA‐hy‐926 could be used as a model for endothelial cells (EC) in leucocyte‐EC adhesion interactions, the effect of interleukin‐4 (IL‐4), tumour necrosis factor (TNF) or interferon‐γ (IFN) stimulation on their adhesiveness and expression of E‐selectin, vascular cell adhesion molecule‐1 (VCAM‐1) and intercellular adhesion molecule‐1 (ICAM‐1) was compared with that of HUVEC and A549. Although HUVEC exhibited increased adhesiveness and adhesion molecule expression with IL‐4, TNF or IFN, EA‐hy‐926 exhibited these responses only with TNF. CD11/CD 18‐dependent binding accounted for a significant component of basal binding to HUVEC and EA‐hy‐926, but did not account for the increased binding of T cells, JY, J6, ICH‐BJ or ICH‐KM cell lines to TNF‐stimulated monolayers. At least part of the CD1l/CD18‐independent adhesion was attributable to VCAM‐1 induction on HUVFC and FA‐hy‐926. TNF‐stimulation also induced F‐selectin expression on EA‐hy‐926 and HUVEC and an accompanying increase in neutrophil (PMN) binding. The EA‐hy‐926 cells used in this study, therefore, showed responses similar to HUVEC when stimulated with TNF but not when stimulated with IL‐4 or IFN.