Complex analysis of genes involved in the inflammatory response: interleukin-1-induced differential transcriptome of cultured human hepatoma HepG2 cells

The systemic inflammatory reaction (acute phase response) is induced by many noxious stimuli but in all cases the inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-l-beta (IL-1beta) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), are involved. Liver cell response to inflammation manifested by a characteristic change in the profile of synthesized plasma proteins (acute phase proteins) has been extensively studied. Here we describe a model system of cultured human hepatoma HepG2 cells stimulated with IL-1beta to evaluate the transcriptome induced by this cytokine during 24 h of treatment. By using differential display analysis we found IL-1beta-induced upregulation of several genes coding for cellular trafficking/motor proteins, proteins participating in the translation machinery or involved in posttranscription/posttranslation modifications, proteases, proteins involved in cellular metabolism, activity modulators, proteins of the cell cycle machinery and also some new proteins so far functionally not classified.