Granulomatous inflammation of the liver in mice with gadolinium chloride-blocked Kupffer cells

(CBA×C57B1/6) F₁ mice injected with zymosan intravenously developed granulomas in the liver; the number of granulomas in mice pretreated with gadolinium chloride, a selective blocker of Kupffer cells, was half that in the untreated animals. Kupffer cells isolated from the liver 5 days after zymosan injection, i.e., during the period when granuloma generation was at its height, displayed a high capacity for stimulating both the luminol-dependent chemiluminescence of blood leukocytes (which is associated with the generation of reactive oxygen species) and the colony-forming activity of bone marrow cells; this capacity was much lower in mice pretreated with gadolinium chloride. It is shown that granulomatous inflammation of the liver is directly dependent on the activity of Kupffer cells. Translated fromByulleten' Eksperimental'noi Biologii i Meditsiny, Vol. 120, N ^o 10, pp. 366–369, October, 1995 Presented by V. P. Kaznacheev, Member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences