Diabetic patients have an increased cardiovascular risk. We propose to characterize the endothelial dysfunction in a disease-specific in vitro model. Human saphenous vein endothelial cells (HSVEC) were isolated from coronary artery bypass patients without and with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Growth kinetics and proinflammatory responses (expression of adhesion molecules, cytokines) were documented under non-stimulating conditions. Diabetic HSVEC showed delayed growth kinetics with reduced cell densities of about 40%. During exponential growth of diabetic EC, the surface expression of adhesion molecules was increased 10-fold (p< or =0.05). However, in a monolayer the expression adapted to low levels of non-diabetic EC. In addition, diabetic EC produced significantly more soluble E-selectin, VCAM-1, IL-6 and MCP-1. Our results suggest a link between the pathologically proinflammatory basic state of diabetic EC and the endothelial dysfunction in diabetic disease. Therefore, this in vitro model could be used for investigating early dysfunction and environmental effects on pathological endothelium.