The blood-brain barrier GLUT1 glucose transporter is localized in brain to the capillary endothelium, which makes up the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in vivo. However, its expression is markedly downregulated in cultured bovine brain capillary endothelium (ECL cells), possibly due to the absence of brain-derived or astrocyte trophic factors in the tissue culture medium. To examine this hypothesis, we studied the effect of a bovine brain homogenate (BBH), and conditioned media and plasma membranes obtained from the rat C6 glioma cell line, on the abundance of the GLUT1 transcript in ECL cells. BBH induced a significant increase in the abundance of both GLUT1 and actin mRNAs, and this effect was dose and time dependent. The increase in the GLUT1 mRNA levels correlated with an increase in the transcriptional rate of this gene measured by nuclear run-on experiments. C6 conditioned media and C6 plasma membranes had no effect on the abundance of either GLUT1 or actin mRNA. To determine whether known growth factors cause BBH-like induction of GLUT1 and actin mRNAs, a series of growth factors was also tested. EGF and PDGF had no effect on the levels of these mRNAs. Basic FGF had a moderate effect and TNF alpha partially mimicked the effect of BBH on both GLUT1 and actin transcripts. The present data suggests that brain-derived trophic factors present in BBH stimulate BBB-GLUT1 glucose transporter gene expression in ECL cells through a transcriptional mechanism. Although this effect was partially mimicked by TNF alpha, C6 cell membranes or C6 conditioned media were unable to induce changes in the abundance of GLUT1 mRNA. Therefore, BBH may be a useful model to study the characterization of soluble brain-derived trophic factors involved in the induction of BBB-GLUT1 gene expression.