Media conditioned by smooth muscle cells cultured in a variety of hypoxic environments stimulates in vitro angiogenesis. A relationship to transforming growth factor-beta 1.

Conditioned media (CM) harvested from bovine smooth muscle cells (SMCs) of aortic media cultured under hypoxic conditions remarkably enhanced angiogenesis in vitro, that is, the tube formation of bovine capillary endothelial cells (BCEs) cultured on type I collagen gels. The extent of in vitro angiogenesis was assessed by the total length of tube structures formed by BCEs per area measured quantitatively with an image analyzer. The tube formation in CM obtained from the cultivation of SMCs at 1% O2 for 24 hours was enhanced by about 1.5 times and 3.4 times as compared with those at 5% O2 and 20% O2, respectively. This tube-forming activity was abrogated by the pretreatment of CM with anti-transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta 1 IgG, but not by anti-basic fibroblast growth factor IgG. The SMC-CM obtained from hypoxic cultivation (1% O2 for 24 hours) inhibited [3H] thymidine incorporation by BCEs, SMCs, and fibroblasts more than about 20% of control. Anti-TGF-beta 1 IgG thus significantly reduced the inhibitory effect of hypoxic SMC-CM on DNA synthesis of these cells. These results suggest that SMCs in a hypoxic state release active in vitro angiogenic factors into CM, and active TGF-beta 1 is closely related to the in vitro angiogenic enhancement of media conditioned by SMCs cultured in a hypoxic state.