TIMP-3 impairs capillarylike tubular structure formation.

hMVECs were infected with control virus Ad.PC10 (AdCtrl), a virus containing TIMP-1 (AdTIMP-1) or TIMP-3 (AdTIMP-3) as described and were cultured on top of a 3-dimensional matrix containing fibrin and 10% collagen in M199 supplemented with 10% HS and 10% NBCS and stimulated with 50 ng/mL VEGF₁₆₅and 10 ng/mL TNF-α. After 4 days of culturing, total tube length was measured as described and expressed as percentage of tube length formed by VEGF₁₆₅/TNF-α-stimulated hMVECs infected with control virus. The data are expressed as mean ± SD of 6 experiments with duplicate wells for fibrin-collagen matrices. *P < .05 as compared with AdPC10.