Purine Metabolism in Cultured Coronary Endothelial Cells

Abstract

Although it is well known that endothelial cells are involved in several biological processes such as transport¹, hemostasis², synthesis of collagen³, histamine⁴ and prostaglandins⁵, our knowledge concerning intermediary metabolism of the endothelium is rather limited. In the course of studies on interrelationships between heart function and cardiac metabolism^6,7 we became interested in some features of purine metabolism of coronary endothelial cells. Our interest was initiated by the assumption that these cells might contribute to the production of vasoactive adenosine which is considered to play an important role in the metabolic regulation of coronary blood flow^8,9. The studies — not possible of course to be performed under in vivo conditions — were carried out on cultured endothelial cells isolated from coronary vessels of guinea pig hearts as recently described¹⁰.