Delivery of human fibroblast growth factor-1 gene to brain by modified rat brain endothelial cells

Fibroblast growth factor (FGF) is an endothelial cell mitogen and serves as a mitogen and/or differentiating factor that can be neuroprotective for other cell types within the CNS. We established brain microvascular endothelial cell lines that secrete FGF-1 with the ultimate goal of examining their usefulness as a cellular platform for FGF gene delivery to brain. A chimeric gene consisting of the secretory sequence of FGF-4 linked at the 5' end of human FGF-1 (sp-hst/KS3:FGF-1) was transfected into rat microvascular endothelial cells previously altered to express the lacZ reporter gene (RBEZ), and numerous clones were found to secrete FGF-1 (RBEZ-FGF). Immunoblotting of conditioned medium demonstrated an 18-kDa protein corresponding to FGF-1. Conditioned medium from RBEZ-FGF cells enhanced [3H]thymidine incorporation in BALB/c3T3 fibroblasts by up to sevenfold when compared with conditioned medium of control cell lines, corresponding to as much as 110 ng of active FGF-1/mg of cell protein/24 h. RBEZ-FGF cell lines remained contact-inhibited and proliferated independent of exogenous endothelial mitogens, in contrast to control lines that are mitogen-dependent. Incubation of PC12 cells with RBEZ-FGF cells or their conditioned medium induced neurite outgrowth by PC12 cells. RBEZ-FGF cells survived following implantation to neonatal and adult rat caudate-putamen for at least 21 days based on 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl beta-D-galactopyranoside (X-gal) histochemistry, and FGF-1 gene expression by these cells in vivo was demonstrated by in situ hybridization and reverse transcriptase-PCR. These findings suggest that endothelial cells may be useful for FGF gene delivery to the CNS.