Primary bovine hepatocytes in the study of cytokine induced acute-phase protein secretion in vitro.

To investigate the utility of primary cultures of bovine hepatocytes for compartmentalized acute phase protein studies the secretion of serum amyloid-A (SAA) and haptoglobin (Hp) was measured after stimulation by pro-inflammatory cytokines (recombinant human IL-6 (rhIL-6) and recombinant human tumour necrosis factor-alpha (rhTNF-alpha)). During the incubation period of the experiment, the SAA and Hp secretion into the culture medium increased (P < 0.05). SAA concentrations showed an additional increase following treatment with each of the cytokines (P < 0.01). Hp concentrations remained unchanged, whereas incubation with a combination of both resulted in a significant increase of the medium concentration of both SAA (P < 0.01) and Hp (P < 0.05). From these findings it is concluded that primary bovine hepatocytes can be used for in vitro studies on acute-phase protein secretion.