The Culture and Identification of Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells

Objective: To establish an experimental model of human vascular endothelial cell (EC) in vitro with human umbilical vein ECs. Methods: ECs were obtained by perfusing type I collagenase (0.1%) and to digest umbilical vein. The ECs collected by centrifuge were cultured in low-Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium with 10%FBS plus penicillin, streptomycin, vascular endothelial growth factor and kept at 37 ℃ in a 5% CO_2 air atmosphere. The cultured ECs were observed under inverted microscope for their morphologic characteristics and were identified by immunochemical method with factor Ⅷ antigen. Results: The cultured cells were identified as umbilical vein ECs. Conclusion: The digestion using collagenase is a good method for collection of human umbilical vein ECs.