The effects of tumor necrosis factor on cultured hepatocytes and non-parenchymal liver ceils in the mouse

The effects of tumor necrosis factor(TNF)on the cultured mouse hepa-tocytes and non-parenchymal liver cells were observed.It was found that therewere no significant changes of the morphological integrity and viability of thehepatocytes and the aspartate transferase level in the culture supernate after theaddition of TNF into the culture medium as compared with those of the normalcontrol,which indicates that TNF exerts no obvious cytotoxocity on the culturedmouse hepatocytes. In addition,there were also no significant changes of theabove mentioned parameters after TNF was added to the cocultures of hepato-cytes and non-parenchymal liver cells,which implies that the unactivated non-parenchymal liver cells are not involved in the TNF-related hepatocyte injury.