Recombinant human erythropoietin stimulates vascular endothelial growth factor release by glomerular endothelial cells.

We designed the present study to address the question of whether recombinant human erythropoietin stimulates DNA synthesis and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) secretion in vitro using cultured bovine glomerular endothelial cells (GENs). Recombinant human erythropoietin dose-dependently stimulated the proliferation of GENs in culture, and this proliferative effect was inhibited by 1 microg/ml anti-VEGF antiserum. The increase in VEGF concentrations in the supernatants containing 10 U/ml rHuEpo was abolished by incubation with 10 microg/ml of anti-human rHuEPO antiserum, 0.2 microg/ml actinomycin D or 10 microg/ml cycloheximide. Taken together, rHuEpo stimulates GEN proliferation in vitro and VEGF release from these cells is associated with stimulation of RNA-dependent DNA and protein synthesis.