Experimental hypoxia as potent stimulus for radiotracer uptake in vitro: comparison of different primary endothelial cells

Hypoxia is a common feature of various human tumor entities. Hypoxic tumor tissue can be studied by nuclear medicine imaging techniques like PET and SPECT. In this study we analyzed in vitro the influence of experimental hypoxia on the radiotracer uptake of various primary endothelial cells, which play an essential part in tumor angiogenesis.
Experimental hypoxia was induced by cultivating cells for 24 hours in presence of 2% oxygen in a special incubator (Gasboy C40, Labotect). Cellular uptake of [99mTc]MIBI, [18F]MISO and [18F]FDG was determined after one or four hours incubation and measured after cell lysis with a gamma counter Cobra II (Perkin Elmer). Radiotracer uptake was normalized to the cell protein. Three types of primary endothelial cells were used: human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC), human dermal microvascular endothelial cells (HDMEC) and human aortic endothelial cells (HAEC) as well as the two tumor cell lines, being FaDu (squamous cell carcinoma) and HT29 (colorectal adenocarcinoma), respectively. Cellular expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-1a (HIF-1a) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was monitored with quantitative PCR (RotorGene 2000).
In our experiments we found that under hypoxic conditions the uptake of [99Tc]MIBI was decreased in all cell types. The uptake of the hypoxia-specific radiotracer [18F]MISO was slightly increased in all primary endothelial cell types. Furthermore, primary endothelial cells incorporated significant higher amounts of [18F]FDG under experimental hypoxic conditions in comparison to normoxic conditions. Especially HDMECs showed a marked response to hypoxia with an approximately two-fold higher [18F]FDG uptake. Also HUVECs and HAECs responded to experimental hypoxia, whereas tumor cell lines FaDu and HT29 showed only moderate increase of [18F]FDG uptake under hypoxic conditions.
We conclude that experimental hypoxia represents a much higher stimulus for primary endothelial cells than for cultivated tumor cells to accumulate [18F]FDG and also to incorporate [18F]MISO in vitro. Our data emphasize the relevance of endothelial cells as one important part of the tumor micromilieu and stimulate further studies on the different patterns of radiotracer uptake in neoplastic or neovascularized lesions.