Inhibitory effect of lead on the repair of wounded monolayers of cultured vascular endothelial cells

We investigated the effect of lead nitrate (0.5–5.0 μM) on the repair of wounded monolayer of cultured bovine aortic endothelial cells. It was morphologically found that lead decreases the appearance of the cells in the wounded area in a concentration-dependent manner without degenerative changes after a 48-h incubation. Although mercury weakly inhibited the repair with nonspecific cell damage, the other cations including bismuth, cobalt, manganese and nickel failed to affect the repair. The inhibition of endothelial repair caused by lead was observed even when stimulated by exogenous either basic or acidic fibroblast growth factor. These results indicated that inhibition of the repair process of damaged endothelial cell layer is a component of lead-induced vascular lesions such as atherosclerosis.