Differential pharmacological behaviour of p38 inhibitors in regulating the LPS-induced TNF-α production in human and rat whole blood in vitro.

p38 inhibitors are potent TNF-α suppressors in LPS-stimulated human whole blood and promote efficacy in the rat adjuvant arthritis model. However, the anti-TNF-α activity of p38 inhibitors in rat whole blood has not been explored, preventing the establishment of a potential relation between in vitro and in vivo activity data in the same species. We have pharmacologically characterized a rat whole blood assay based on LPS stimulation. While p38 inhibitors showed good activity in the human assay, they failed to inhibit TNF-α in the rat whole blood assay. At high LPS concentration some compounds even potentiated TNF-α production in the rat assay, which could be reverted in the presence of the ERK pathway inhibitor U0126. Our results suggest that p38 contributes directly to TNF-α production in human whole blood while playing a negative regulatory role in rat blood which can be overridden by p38 inhibition in the presence of high stimulus concentration.