Abstract
When mice were intravenously injected with heat-killed Propionibacterium acnes followed by an intravenous injection of a small amount of gram-negative lipopolysaccharide (LPS) 7 days later, most of the mice died of massive hepatic cell necrosis. However, when K76, an anti-complementary agent which acts on C5, was administered prior to LPS injection, remarkable improvements in the survival rate and in the histological changes of the liver were observed. How K76 suppressed the induction of massive hepatic cell necrosis was further studied. Since our previous report indicated that the liver adherent cells caused hepatocyte injury, whether adherent cells or hepatocytes were affected by K76 was investigated. As a result, K76 not only inhibited the activation of liver adherent cells and suppressed the release of the cytotoxic factor, but it directly affected the hepatocytes and protected them from the cytotoxic factor.
