Rat liver eicosanoid synthesis during turpentine-induced inflammation.

Subcellular liver fractions from rats receiving a subcutaneous injection of turpentine, which causes a local inflammation, show an increased synthesis of Prostaglandin E2 and Prostaglandin F2 alpha which reaches a peak 90 minutes and 3 hours after treatment, respectively. Stimulation of phospholipase A2 activity of liver cell preparations seems to be responsible for the supply of arachidonic acid necessary to feed PG synthesis: this stimulation is accompanied by unchanged levels of diacylglycerol lipase, diacylglycerol kinase and protein kinase C activities and by an unchanged content of diacylglycerol in the liver tissue. This picture does not favour the hypothesis of an involvement of phospholipase C in the early stages after turpentine treatment. Determinations of GTP-ase activity in plasma membrane-rich liver preparations give ambiguous results, which do not allow any conclusion on the possible role of G-proteins in phospholipase A2 activation.