Figure 5
NKT cell-mediated liver injury is Kupffer cell- and IL-12-dependent in HBs-Tg mice after CpG injection. (a, b) Depletion of Kupffer cells was achieved by pretreatment with GdCl3 24 h before CpG injection in HBs-Tg mice. Endogenous IL-12 was neutralized by pretreatment with anti-IL-12 mAb 12 h before CpG injection in HBs-Tg mice. Serum ALT levels were determined 24 h after CpG injection (a), and the expression levels of FasL and CD69 on hepatic NKT cells were determined by FACS analysis (b). (c) Kupffer cells were isolated from ODN control or CpG-ODN-treated HBs-Tg mice. After 48 h of culture, the supernatants were collected for IL-12 measurement by ELISA. (d) HBs-Tg mice were pretreated with GdCl3 or saline. Serum IL-12 levels were determined 3 h after CpG injection. All values are shown as the mean±s.e.m. from 6–8 mice per group and are representative of two experiments. *P<0.05 versus control group by Student’s t-test. ALT, alanine aminotransferase; ELISA, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; FACS, fluorescence-activated cell sorting; HBs-Tg, hepatitis B surface antigen transgenic; IL, interleukin; mAb, antibody; NKT, natural killer T; ODN, oligodeoxynucleotide.
