The influence of prednisolone on the secretion of MUC5AC from TH29-MTX cell culture

INTRODUCTION: Glucocorticoids have been used in the treatment of otitis media with effusion with promising but inconsistent resluts. The HT29-MTX cell line is a completely differentiated and almost exclusively mucous secreting cell line, which therefore has the potential to act as an ideal model for the study of mucus-secreting epithelia. To assess this potential of steroids in suppressing mucin secretion we have studied the response of the cell culture to prednisolone.
METHODS: Confluent cell cultures were trypsinized, subcultured in six-well plates and incubated with four doses of prednisolone from 10-5 M to 10-11 M and over varying time courses from 12 to 36 h. ELISA was performed using a monoclonal mouse antibody to human gastric mucin by dot-blot ELISA.
RESULTS: Prednisolone caused a reduction in mucin production from the cell line consistently. Media control values ranged from 3495 to 3559 compared with untreated controls of 18 998-27 176 and steroid treatment values of 12 244-27 792. Increasing concentrations of prednisolone result in increasing suppression of MUC5AC (P = 0.005). There was no independent time-related effect.
CONCLUSION: There does appear to be a genuine suppression of mucus production by prednisolone and this appears to be dose-dependent but not time-dependent at the times studied. The effect size was small.