Rate of Clearance of Interleukin-1 from the Blood of Normal and Nephrectomized Rats

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Abstract
Interleukin-1 (IL-1), a macrophage product, appears to be responsible for a wide variety of changes in animals during the early stages of infection and inflammation. However, the fate of injected IL-1 has not been established. The major pathway of removal from the circulation may be through the kidney, since IL-1 can be found in urine. The IL-1 for these studies was prepared from peritoneal macrophages of rats and rabbits. The clearance rate of IL-1 was determined by measuring the activity, for increasing plasma fibrinogen or releasing bone marrow neutrophils, which remained in the blood at various times after an iv injection. Both rat and rabbit IL-1 were removed rapidly from the blood of rats. The results indicate that less than 10% of the IL-1 was cleared by the kidney. So that rats with their kidneys removed showed only a slight decrease in the clearance rate of IL-1. This suggests that excretion through the kidney does not represent the major mechanism of IL-1 disposal.