Discrimination of hepatocyte‐stimulating activity from human recombinant tumor necrosis factor α

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Abstract
The involvement of tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) in the regulation of acute-phase protein synthesis is currently under discussion. In this study the effect of human recombinant TNFα on the regulation of the 4 acute-phase proteins α2-macroglobulin, albumin, α1-proteinase inhibitor and α-acute-phase globulin was investigated in rat hepatocyte primary cultures. No changes in synthesis of any of the 4 proteins were observed. However, an acute-phase response similar to that in vivo could be generated by conditioned media from human monocytes containing natural TNFα. This response remained unchanged after neutralizing TNFα activity by the addition of a specific antibody to TNFα. It is concluded that the hepatocyte-stimulating activity synthesized by human monocytes is different from TNFα.