In vitro remodeling of tumor vascular endothelial cells using conditioned medium from various tumor cells and their sensitivity to TNF-alpha.

Prevention of tumor-associated blood vessel formation (angiogenesis) is a potentially powerful strategy to treat cancer. We found that tumor vascular endothelial cells were rearranged in vitro with conditioned culture medium derived from tumor cells and compared the sensitivity to the effects of TNF-alpha between normal and tumor endothelial cells. Incubation with tumor (Meth-A, Colon26)-derived conditioned medium showed that no effect was observed on cell growth. Tumor cells (Meth-A, Colon26, and B16BL6) only showed no sensitivity to TNF-alpha. Normal and control endothelial cells in culture showed little cytotoxicity in response to TNF-alpha treatment, but marked cytotoxicity of TNF-alpha was observed in endothelial cells cultured with tumor-derived conditioned medium. Sensitivity to TNF-alpha was different depending on the type of tumor from which the conditioned medium was derived. This difference in sensitivity was assumed to be due to the in vivo sensitivity to TNF-alpha. The results of this study suggested that the sensitivity of tumors to TNF-alpha is controlled by the sensitivity of tumor vasculature. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.