Phenotypic plasticity of human umbilical vein endothelial cells
- 1School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK
- 2Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
- 3Department of Ophthalmology, Nottingham University Hospitals, Nottingham, UK
- Correspondence to Dr Lopa Leach, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham NGF 2UH, UK; lopa.leach{at}nottingham.ac.uk
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Contributors Each author's contribution to the paper, according to the ICMJE guidelines for authorship, was as follows: LL wrote the letter which was edited, added to and approved by RDH and AJEF.
- Endothelial plasticity
- HUVEC
- ocular vascular cells
- ocular models
- macula
- angiogenesis
- experimental and laboratory
- retina
- treatment lasers
- treatment other
- treatment surgery
- clinical trial
We read the article of Browning et al1 about comparative gene expression profiling of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and ocular vascular endothelial cells with interest. The authors report that primary HUVEC (commercially bought, unpassaged) show enrichment for probe sets involved in embryological development while ocular microvascular endothelial cells (choroidal and retinal) isolated from postmortem human globes 49–52 h after death demonstrated enrichment for probe sets for MHC classes I and II, immune responses and cell signal transduction. Postmortem artefact, including cessation of circulation, needs to be excluded as a possible cause of inflammatory gene …
