Thrombin stimulates tissue plasminogen activator release from cultured human endothelial cells.

The effect of thrombin on the release of tissue plasminogen activator from endothelial cells was studied in primary cultures of human umbilical vein endothelial cells. Tissue plasminogen activator concentration in conditioned medium was measured by a two-site radioimmunometric assay. The addition of increasing concentrations (0.01 to 10 U/ml) of thrombin to confluent cultures produced a saturable, dose-dependent increase in the rate of release of tissue plasminogen activator. A sixfold increase in tissue plasminogen activator concentration (from 2 to 12 ng/ml) occurred after the addition of 1 U/ml thrombin (8 X 10(-9) M) to cultures containing 5 X 10(4) cells/cm2. Enhanced release was not observed until 6 h after thrombin addition, reached a maximum rate of 1.3 ng/ml per h between 8 and 16 h, and then declined to 0.52 ng/ml per h after 16 h. The 6-h lag period before increased tPA release was reproducible and independent of thrombin concentration. Thrombin inactivated with diisopropylfluorophosphate or hirudin did not induce an increase in tissue plasminogen activator levels. A 50-fold excess of diisopropylfluorophosphate-treated thrombin, which inhibits binding of active thrombin to endothelial cell high affinity binding sites, did not inhibit the thrombin-induced increase. It is concluded that proteolitically active thrombin causes an increase in the rate of release of tissue plasminogen activator from cultured human endothelial cells. The 6-h interval between thrombin treatment and enhanced tissue plasminogen activator release may reflect a delaying mechanism that transiently protects hemostatic plugs from the sudden increase in the local concentration of this fibrinolytic enzyme.