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Effects of Glucocorticoids on the Interaction of Lymphoblastoid Cells with Human Endothelial Cells in Vitro¹

Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology-Oncology, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa 52242

The adhesive characteristics of cultured acute lymphocytic leukemia cells (CCRF-CEM), lymphoma cells (Raji), and freshly isolated acute lymphocytic leukemia cells to human cultured endothelial cells were studied. An assay system was used whereby these neoplastic cells were allowed to interact with endothelial cells while being continuously agitated on a rocking platform. All cell lines adhered significantly to the endothelium monolayers. This process appeared not to be dependent upon intact microtubular or microfilament function. Likewise, removing surface sialic acid from either cell type did not alter this process. In contrast incubating the endothelial cells for 24 or 48 hr with dexamethasone decreased adhesiveness of either CCRF-CEM or Raji cells to the endothelial cells by approximately 40%. Incubating these cells with hydrocortisone instead of dexamethasone for 48 hr was equally as effective in altering the endothelial cell adhesiveness. The decreased adhesiveness could be blocked by cycloheximide, indicating that this altered adhesiveness of the endothelial cells involves protein synthesis, presumably of a surface protein. We suggest that this assay system may provide a means to evaluate other agents that can alter the surface characteristics of endothelial cells, which may have important implications in various disease states such as inflammation, thrombogenesis, and metastatic disease.

¹ This work was supported in part by NIH (National Cancer Institute) Grant CA 17870 from the USPHS and in part by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute through a Specialized Center of Research in Atherosclerosis, Grant 14203. This work was presented in part at the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Denver, Colo., May 1977 (8).

² To whom requests for reprints should be addressed.

Received 1/ 3/78. Accepted 4/19/78.