Effect of Glycated Albumin and Shear Stress on Endothelial Cell Functions

Abstract

Our goal was to evaluate the combined effect of albumin glycation extent and physiological shear loading on endothelial cell (EC) functions. Cultured ECs were incubated with glycated or non-glycated albumin (2, 6 or 8 weeks of glycation) for up to 5 days. After incubation, ECs were subjected to low, medium or high shear stress (4, 10, 40 dynes/cm2) for 1 hour. EC morphology, shear induced cytoskeletal structure and inflammatory and thrombogenic responses were observed. We hypothesized that the combined effect of high shear stress with glycated albumin would enhance endothelial inflammatory responses to mimic cardiovascular diseases. Results indicated that ECs incubated with advanced (6 and 8 weeks) glycated albumin and exposed to high shear stress had an altered actin alignment and structure. Furthermore, EC metabolic activity in the presence of glycated albumin, decreased with increasing shear stress. Also, ECs treated with glycated albumin induced new communicative network formation. Thus, the results indicate that the presence of advance glycation end products severely affects the function of ECs under various physiological shear stress conditions.