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Title: Natural killer (NK) activity of pit cells perfused from livers of rats treated with ethanol

Conference · · FASEB Journal (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology); (United States)
OSTI ID:5905513
; ; ;  [1]
  1. National Inst. of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Rockville, MD (United States) Univ. of Arkansas Medical Sciences, Little Rock (United States)

The liver is the major site of ethanol (ETOH) metabolism. Liver sinusoids contain lymphocytes with NK activity. The authors treated LEW rats for 2 weeks with i.p. injection of 1.25 ml 25% ETOH/kg 3 times/week and 5% ETOH in drinking water. Livers were perfused at 5-fold physiological pressure and cells obtained were banded on 1.077 density Ficoll. Their cytotoxicity was tested against {sup 51}Cr-labeled YAC-1 or U937 and compared to spleen and blood lymphocytes. In untreated rats, pit cell NK activity was 2-fold that of splenic lymphocytes and 4-fold that of blood lymphocytes. Compared to controls, ETOH-treated rats exhibited a 30 to 90% rise in pit cell NK activity detected with YAC-1 or U937 targets. The pit cell enhanced NK activity in ETOH-treated rats was further increased if polyinosinicpolycytidilic acid was injection i.p. 18 hours before the assay. Blood and spleen lymphocyte NK activity of ETOH-treated rats was also greater than in controls. There was no evidence that ETOH merely redistributed lymphocytes among the tissues. Although ETOH acutely inhibits NK activity in vitro, chronic ETOH increases in vivo.

OSTI ID:
5905513
Report Number(s):
CONF-9104107-; CODEN: FAJOE
Journal Information:
FASEB Journal (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology); (United States), Vol. 5:4; Conference: 75. annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), Atlanta, GA (United States), 21-25 Apr 1991; ISSN 0892-6638
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English