STUDY ON THE SYNTHESIS OF COMPLEMENT COMPONENTS BY HUMAN RENAL MESANGIAL CELLS IN CULTURE - ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECT OF CYTOKINES

Renal mesangial cell (MC) cultures are easily established and widely u sed. MC produce some complement (C) regulatory proteins. We studied wh ether MC synthesize C components (C3, C5, C8). MC cultures were establ ished from normal portions of cortices of nephrectomies for renal canc er. After growing to near-confluence in RPMI/17% FBS and resting for 2 4 h in RPMI/0.5% FBS, MC were stimulated up to 72 h with IL-1beta or I L-6 (10, 100, 1000 U/ml). Neither C5 nor C8 were detected by ELISA. Wh ile C3 was present in supernatant under basal conditions ( 15.5-107.6 ng/10(6) cells/24h) in different MC lines. IL-1beta up-regulated the s ynthesis by 2.4-4.5 folds, whereas IL-6 did not show any effect. C3 sy nthetic rate was 1,76 ng/h/10(6) cells under IL-1 stimulation versus b asal rate of 0,37 ng/h/10(6) cells. MC production of C3, especially in duced by IL-I may have pathogenetic relevance in glomerulonephritis.