Soluble interleukin-6 receptor strongly increases the production of acute-phase protein by hepatoma cells but exerts minimal changes on human primary hepatocytes

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) interacts with a system of receptors, which include a 80-kDa IL-6-binding subunit (IL-6R) and a transducing element (gp130). The soluble form of IL-6R (sIL-6R) can bind its ligand and induce cellular responses by association with gp130, thus acting as an IL-6 agonist. We and others have previously shown that the responsiveness to IL-6 is different in hepatoma and human primary hepatocytes. We therefore compared the effects of sIL-6R on the two types of cells, and on the B9 hybridoma, another IL-6-sensitive cell line. Human primary hepatocytes, hepatoma cells PLC/PRF/5, and B9 cells were incubated with different concentrations of IL-6, sIL-6-R, or both. The hepatocyte culture supernatants were tested for their content of acute-phase proteins (APP). The proliferation of B9 cells was assessed by a colorimetric method. Results showed that sIL-6R alone markedly increases the production of APP by hepatoma cells in a dose-dependent manner, but affects only minimally primary hepatocytes and the proliferation of B9 cells. The combinations of IL-6R and its ligand enhanced the effects of IL-6 alone in both PLC/PRF/5 and B9 cells, but had no effect on primary hepatocytes. An immunohistochemical study indicated that the cell-surface expression of IL-6R was dramatically lower in hepatoma cells than in primary hepatocytes. In conclusion, our results show that the expression of IL-6R is low in the hepatoma cell PLC/PRF/5 when compared with primary hepatocytes and that this difference can, at least partly, explain their deficient responsiveness to IL-6. On the other hand, it appears that IL-6R expression by primary hepatocytes is sufficient and that circulating sIL-6R is unlikely to play a significant role in the modulation of IL-6 effects.