Stress fibres (SF) in human endothelial cells (HEC) under shear stress

Human umbilical veinous endothelial cells are cultured on artificial substrates precoated with extracellular matrix from bovine corneal endothelial cells. These cultural conditions help cells to keep an elevated maintenance level for otherwise unusual time intervals. Integrity of endothelial cell layers is of special interest for nondisturbed blood circulation. Therefore we look after mechanisms of cell--cell and cell--substrate--adherence. Here we focus on stress fibres, microfilaments, which seem to play an important part in cellular adherence phenomena. Since endothelial cells in vivo are constantly shear stressed by the blood stream we investigated cell--substrate interactions in vitro under dynamical conditions with the help of a modified cone--plate rheometer originally designed for hemorheology. It can be demonstrated in these shearing experiments that toxical substances influence the organization of stress fibres.