Hepatotoxic effects of sera from patients with fulminant hepatitis B on isolated rat hepatocytes in culture.

The hepatotoxicity of sera from patients with terminal fulminant hepatic failure has been investigated by cell culture techniques. It could be shown that both untreated and heat-treated sera are cytotoxic in nature. Compared with the action of sera from healthy individuals on liver cells in primary monolayer culture, the pathological sera exhibited significantly different behaviour with respect to morphological and biochemical parameters such as cell adhesion, growth and proliferation, and enzyme release.