Granulomatous inflammation of the liver in mice with gadolinium chloride-blocked Kupffer cells

(CBAxC57B1/6) F-1 mice injected with zymosan intravenously developed granulomas in the liver; the number of granulomas in mice pretreated with gadolinium chloride, a selective blocker of Kupffer cells, was half that in the untreated animals. Kupffer cells isolated from the liver 5 days after zymosan injection, i.e., during the period when granuloma generation was at its height, displayed a high capacity for stimulating both the luminol-dependent chemiluminescence of blood leukocytes (which is associated with the generation of reactive oxygen species) and the colony-forming activity of bone marrow cells; this capacity was much lower in mice pretreated with gadolinium chloride. It is shown that granulomatous inflammation of the liver is directly dependent on the activity of Kupffer cells.