ABSTRACT
Angiogenesis is a fundamental biological process including endothelial cell adhesion, migration, invasion and tube formation. Integrin receptors of endothelial cells play important roles in angiogenesis. They mediate cell-cell contact and cell adhesion to extracellular matrix. Roles of integrins have been described for a number of cell types. ECV304 endothelial cells were known to overexpress alpha3beta1 integrin and to form tube like structure in 3-D Matrigel culture. However the function of alpha3beta1 integrin in endothelial cells remains to be determined. Therefore, we have investigated morphological characteristics of ECV304 cells and roles of alpha3beta1 integrin in angiogenesis. To elucidate several characteristics, ECV304 endothelial cells were compared with HUVEC in the aspect of morphology, localization of integrins, angiogenesis pattern. In addition, role of alpha3beta1 integrin were analyzed in the aspect of endothelial cell binding, migration, invasion and tube formation on Matrigel. The result showed that alpha3beta1 integrin overexpressed ECV304 endothelial cells showed strong adhesiveness to extracellular matrix proteins, and high migration and invasion activities. Furthermore, expression of alpha3beta1 integrin was increased according to time course during in vitro culture and was continuously strong in ECV304 cells on 3-D Matrigel culture. These results indicate that alpha3beta1 integrin is able to be a critical component in control of angiogenesis by regulation of cell adhesion, migration, invasion and tube formation of ECV304 endothelial cells.