Cerebral microvascular endothelial cell tube formation: role of astrocytic epoxyeicosatrienoic acid release.

Cerebral microvascular endothelial cells (CMVEC) form tubes when cocultured with astrocytes (AS). Therefore, it appears that AS may be important in mediating angiogenesis in the brain. We hypothesized that AS modulate CMVEC tube formation by releasing a soluble factor. Thymidine incorporation in cultured CMVEC increased 305% when incubated with 50% conditioned AS medium for 24 h [control: 52,755 +/- 4,838 counts per minute (cpm) per well, conditioned 161,082 +/- 12,099 cpm/well, n = 8]. Because our laboratory has previously shown that AS can produce epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs), which are known mitogens, we investigated whether release of EETs by AS is responsible for tube formation in the CMVEC-AS coculture. AS were seeded on Lab-Tek slides, CMVEC were seeded on the AS the next day, and cultures were allowed to progress for another 5 days with and without cytochrome P-450 epoxygenase blockade by 17-octadecynoic acid (17-ODYA). Tube formation in cocultures receiving 17-ODYA was significantly inhibited compared with control (93.8%). These data suggest that tube formation requires the release of EETs by AS.