Inflammation is a beneficial biological response against infectious agents, with the major aim to eliminate the pathogen and repair damaged tissue. Under certain conditions, such as chronic infections or autoimmune diseases, inflammation does not resolve. Instead, there is an aberrant reaction with continuous infiltration of leukocytes, resulting in a prolonged immune response that leads to tissue damage, fibrosis, loss of function, and overall, disability and in some cases death of the patient. These human disorders, cataloged as inflammatory diseases, all involve the blood vessels for the control of leukocyte extravasation1,2.
The endothelial cells play a fundamental role in the regulation of the inflammatory response by controlling leukocyte trafficking. When the endothelial layer is exposed to inflammatory mediators such as LPS, the resting endothelium activates and expresses pro-inflammatory cytokines (Cxcl10, Cxcl5, Cxcl1, etc.) and adhesion molecules (E-selectin, VCAM-1 and ICAM-1) that favor recruitment of circulating leukocytes to the infection site. The leukocytes primed by the released cytokines then mediate rolling and interaction with the endothelial layer through the correspondent adhesive counterparts: PSGL-1 to selectin, α4β1 integrin to VCAM-1, and αLβ2 integrin to ICAM-1. Finally, the leukocytes migrate across the vasculature towards the focus of inflammation3.
The essential role of the endothelium in regulating the inflammatory response has been demonstrated on mice that were genetically modified to express the LPS receptor, toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), only on the endothelial cells. These endothelial-TLR4 animals were able to respond to an LPS-mediated inflammation and to detect the infection generated after bacteria inoculation, and consequently achieve infection resolution and survival at similar levels as the wild type mice4,5.
For the endothelium-regulated inflammatory response pathway, it has been postulated that the inhibition at some stages of the leukocyte-endothelium interaction would result in the reduction of trans-endothelial migration and a better prognosis for inflammatory-related diseases. In fact, several strategies targeting the endothelial activation and leukocyte-endothelium interaction have been designed to hinder extravasation of immune cells as a treatment for inflammatory disorders6,7.
In this report, we describe a thorough group of in vitro techniques to fully characterize the endothelial activity in response to the inflammatory stimulus LPS and its role in leukocyte activation and adhesion to the vascular layer. The endothelial cell model used in this manuscript was the mouse lung endothelial cell line (MLEC-04), as described by Hortelano et al.8. The MLEC-04 cell line has been validated in the literature to be an appropriate system to study endothelial activation9,10. Based on research interests, these approaches can be easily extrapolated to any endothelial or leukocyte systems and inflammatory profile. Once the endothelial parameters in the selected conditions are defined, the system can test novel drugs on the proposed experimentation to evaluate the vascular activation. In this inflammatory context, the endothelium cells tested with the compound of interest can be compared to the control conditions of the cells, and any resulting differences may inform the drug's prognostic outcome on development and progression of inflammation. To conclude, we propose a relevant system to characterize new drug targets to the endothelial cells, which can influence the design of novel vascular-specific therapies against inflammatory-related diseases.