Zy. Du et Xy. Li, Inhibitory effects of indomethacin on interleukin-1 and nitric oxide production in rat microglia in vitro, INT J IMMUN, 21(3), 1999, pp. 219-225
Indomethacin, as a nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug, is reported to be ef
fective in some degree in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disea
se (AD). Effects of indomethacin on proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-1
(IL-1), tumor necrosis factor alpha and nitric oxide (NO) on rat microglia
in vitro were investigated. The biological activities of IL-1 were assayed
by thymocyte proliferation assay and the activities of TNG-alpha, by L929
cytotoxicity assay. NO concentration was represented by nitrite and determi
ned by Griess reaction. Indomethacin inhibited IL-1 and NO production by ra
t microglia stimulated at the concentration of 0.1-10 mu mol/l. However, it
did not show any inhibitory effect on TNF-alpha production by resting and
LPS-stimulated rat microglia.
The results suggest that the mechanism by which indomethacin might be benef
icial in treatment of AD might be due to the inhibition IL-1 and NO product
ion from microglia. (C) 1999 International Society for Immunopharmacology.
Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.