Inducible adhesion of mesenchymal cells to elastic fibers: elastonectin

The addition of highly purified elastic fibers to confluent human skin fibroblast or porcine aorta smooth muscle cell cultures resulted in a time-dependent, strong adhesion of the fibrils to the cell surface. The kinetics of adhesion was studied by video/time-lapse cinematography. After a 0.5-1 hr lag period, adhesion progressed to a maximum amount in 3-6 hr in the described conditions. Adhesion is strongly accelerated by the prior addition of soluble elastin peptides (kappa-elastin) to the cultures. Cycloheximide inhibits this induced adhesion. Adherent elastic fibers can be detached by treatment with elastase and trypsin but not with collagenase. The radioactive proteins adhering to elastic fibers, after a 6-hr incubation of the induced cultures in presence of [35S]methionine, were extracted and analyzed by NaDodSO4/PAGE. The proteins strongly adhering to the elastic fibers had apparent molecular sizes of about 120, 67, 60, and 45 kDa. Only the 120-kDa protein band showed a significant increase of its associated radioactivity in the induced cultures as compared to the noninduced cultures. We propose that the 120-kDa protein is responsible for the induced adhesion of mesenchymal cells to elastic fibers and designate it "elastonectin."