ETHANOL FEEDING INHIBITS PROINFLAMMATORY CYTOKINE EXPRESSION FROM MURINE ALVEOLAR MACROPHAGES EX-VIVO

The prolonged and excessive consumption of alcohol has been shown to p redispose the host to a variety of infectious complications, which may be due, in part, to the inability to produce important activating and chemotactic cytokines. In this study, we assessed the effect of alcoh ol ingestion on the expression of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alp ha), and the chemokines macrophage inflammatory protein-2 (MIP-2) and macrophage inflammatory protein-1 alpha (MIP-1 alpha) from murine alve olar macrophages (AMs) cultured ex vivo. Two-week ethanol feeding resu lted in substantial impairment in the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced expression of TNF-alpha, MIP-2, and MIP-1 alpha mRNA, and protein fro m LPS-stimulated AMs, compared with cytokine production from AMs obtai ned from CD-1 mice receiving an isocaloric control diet, These finding s indicate that ethanol feeding results in diminished production of ch emotactic and/or activating cytokines from AMs ex vivo that may contri bute to the impairment in lung inflammatory responses and antimicrobia l host defense that is observed in the setting of alcohol ingestion/in toxication clinically and experimentally.