12th International Symposium on Bioluminescence & Chemiluminescence

Symposium abstracts:

Evaluation of reactive oxygen species production in Kupffer cells by chemiluminescence

Guardigli, Massimo¹, Roda, Aldo¹, Aldini, Rita², Marangoni, Antonella³, Cevenini, Roberto³

1. Dept. of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 6, 40126 Bologna, Italy

Email: mguardig@alma.unibo.it

2. Institute of Chemical Sciences, University of Bologna, Via San Donato 15, 40127 Bologna, Italy

3. Section of Microbiology, DMCSS, University of Bologna, Via Massarenti 9, 40138 Bologna, Italy

Luminol and lucigenin amplified chemiluminescence is widely used for the sensitive detection of reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in cells such as polymorphonuclear leukocytes and macrophages. A few work in this field has been done on Kupffer cells, macrophage-like cells typical of the liver. We used luminol amplified chemiluminescence to study ROS production by isolated rat Kupffer cells in the presence of spirochetes (Leptospira interrogans, Treponema pallidum, and Borrelia garinii), the etiological agents of human infections such as syphilis, Lyme borreliosis, relapsing fevers and leptospirosis. We found a positive correlation between the ROS production by Kupffer cells and the concentration of spirochetes, and that Borreliae are the most effective in inducing this process. Factors (e.g., opsonization) that increased the extent of phagocytosis, assessed by immunofluorescence measurements, also determined higher chemiluminescent signals. On the other hand, no detectable ROS production was observed in the presence of purified spirochetal proteins able to stimulate cytochine production, suggesting that production of reactive oxygen species in Kupffer cells is a phagocytosis-related process.

This is a preprint of an article accepted for publication in Luminescence: Copyright 2001 John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd (Wiley website)