Dynamic monitoring of changes in endothelial cell-substrate adhesiveness during leukocyte adhesion by microelectrical
Yakun Ge1, Tongle Deng, Xiaoxiang Zheng
1Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Ministry of China, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
Abstract:
Adhesion of leukocytes to endothelial cells in inflammation processes leads to changes of endothelial cell-substrate adhesiveness, and understanding of such changes will provide us with important information of inflammation processes. In this study, we used a noninvasive biosensor system referred to as real-time cell electronic sensor (RT-CES) system to monitor the changes in endothelial cell-substrate adhesiveness induced by human monoblastic cell line U937 cell adhesion in a dynamic and quantitative manner. This assay, which is based on cell-substrate impedance readout, is able to monitor transient changes in cell-substrate adhesiveness as a result of U937 cell adhesion. The U937 cell adhesion to endothelial cells was induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in a dose-dependent manner. Although the number of adherent U937 cells to the endothelial cells was verified by a standard assay, the adhesiveness of endothelial cells after addition of U937 cells was monitored by the RT-CES system. Furthermore, focal adhesion kinase protein decrease and F-actin rearrangement in endothelial cells were observed after addition of U937 cells. Our results indicated that the adhesion of U937 cells to LPS-treated endothelial cells reduced the cell adhesiveness to the substrate, and such reduction might facilitate infiltration of leukocytes.
