Influence of dental amalgam and heavy metal cations onin vitro interleukin-1? production by human peripheral blood mononuclear cells

✍ Scribed by Rausch-Fan, Xiaohui ;Schedle, Andreas ;Franz, Alexander ;Spittler, Andreas ;Gornikiewicz, Alexander ;Jensen-Jarolim, Erika ;Sperr, Wolfgang ;Boltz-Nitulescu, George

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 314 KB
• Volume: 51
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9304
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4636(200007)51:1<88::aid-jbm12>3.0.co;2-w

✦ Synopsis

The influence of dental amalgam and heavy metal cations on interleukin-1␤ (IL-1␤) expression by peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy donors was studied. A marked decrease in the production of IL-1␤ was caused by freshly prepared amalgam or amalgamconditioned culture medium, but not by amalgam aged for 6 weeks. When metal cations were added as salts, Cu 2+ , Hg 2+ , and Ag + at high concentrations (33.3 and 333.3 M) were highly inhibitory. Among other heavy metal cations, Au 3+ , Pt 4+ , Ni 2+ , Pd 2+ , but not Ga 3+ or Sn 2+ , inhibited IL-1␤ production in a concentration-dependent manner. Flow cytometry studies indicated that Hg 2+ and Ag + strongly reduced the percentage of CD14 + cells containing IL-1␤ intracellularly. As shown by Northern blot analysis, Hg 2+ inhib-ited the level of IL-1␤-specific mRNA by 28% at 3.3 M and completely at 33.3 M. Only slight inhibitory effects were induced by Cu 2+ at 33.3 M. Interestingly, Ag + at a concentration of 3.3 M increased twofold the amount of IL-1␤specific mRNA. Our data show that IL-1␤ production is altered at protein and mRNA levels by components released from fresh amalgam and by other heavy metal cations, suggesting a role of these cations in changes in the cell phenotype and IL-1-mediated cell functions.