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The effect of sera from nine patients with fulminant hepatic failure on liver cell growth was investigated by use of adult rat liver cells in primary culture. All nine sera stimulated DNA synthesis in hepatocytes more effectively than normal human serum, which had only slight growth-promoting activity. Moreover four of the sera showed marked stimulatory activity on DNA synthesis of more than 10 times that of normal human serum. The serum with the highest activity had a dose-dependent effect, and its effect at 10% concentration was greater than that of a combination of the optimal concentrations of insulin and epidermal growth factor. Autoradiographic and morphological data showed that cells that replicated and increased in number in the presence of this serum were parenchymal hepatocytes.
Nakayama et al. (Tue,) studied this question.