PRIMARY BOVINE HEPATOCYTES IN THE STUDY OF CYTOKINE-INDUCED ACUTE-PHASE PROTEIN SECRETION IN-VITRO

To investigate the utility of primary cultures of bovine hepatocytes f or compartmentalized acute phase protein studies the secretion of seru m amyloid-A (SAA) and haptoglobin (Hp) was measured after stimulation by pro-inflammatory cytokines (recombinant human IL-6 (rhIL-6) and rec ombinant human tumour necrosis factor-alpha (rhTNF-alpha)). During the incubation period of the experiment, the SAA and Hp secretion into th e culture medium increased (P < 0.05), SAA concentrations showed an ad ditional increase following treatment with each of the cytokines (P < 0.01), Hp concentrations remained unchanged, whereas incubation with a combination of both resulted in a significant increase of the medium concentration of both SAA (P < 0.01) and Hp (P < 0.05), From these fin dings it is concluded that primary bovine hepatocytes can be used for in vitro studies on acute-phase protein secretion.