Suppression of in vitro antibody production by dimethylnitrosamine in mixed cultures of mouse primary hepatocytes and mouse splenocytes.

The suppression of in vitro antibody responses by dimethylnitrosamine (DMN) was produced in a mouse hepatocyte and splenocyte co-culture system. Mouse hepatocytes were isolated from female B6C3F1 mice and cultured for 20-24 hr to allow the formation of a monolayer on collagen-coated plastic petri dishes. Spleen cells were isolated from the same hybrid and were co-cultured with the hepatocytes along with DMN. Cyclophosphamide (CP), an immunosuppressive agent requiring metabolic activation that was included as an initial positive control, produced a marked suppression of the in vitro antibody responses to LPS, DNP-Ficoll, and SRBCs in 4 hr in the co-culture system. Under comparable conditions DMN markedly suppressed the response to SRBCs, marginally suppressed the response to DNP-Ficoll, and did not suppress the polyclonal response to LPS. The suppression by DMN was related to the rocking speed during the 4-hr co-culture period and was optimally produced when the cultures were not rocked. Addition of serum into the medium (10% fetal calf serum) during the co-culture period did not change the effects of DMN on the antibody response. However, the addition of extracellular DNA (1 mg calf thymus DNA/ml) prevented the suppression of the antibody response by DMN. These results suggest that DNA represents the primary macromolecular target for the reactive intermediate of DMN, and indicate that a syngeneic co-culture system can be used to characterize the in vitro immunosuppression