Fig. 3.

Effect of different concentrations of serum obtained from 70% hepatectomized rats treated or not with cimetidine, ranitidine, famotidine and omeprazole on DNA synthesis, % labelling index and ALT of hepatocytes in primary culture. The experimental conditions are described in ‘Materials and Methods’. Culture conditions were as reported in Fig. 1, with the exception that serum from treated and not treated (as control) 70% hepatectomized rats was added instead of EGF. Four final concentrations (10, 20, 40 and 50%) of serum were used. Exposure to [³H] thymidine was for 24 h. Individual culture dishes were processed for autoradiography and DNA synthesis. A total of 1000 cells randomly selected were counted to obtain the percent of labelled cells. Results are presented as mean ± S.D. (DNA synthesis = cpm × 10⁻²/μg DNA; labelled nuclei = % of labelled nuclei; aminotransferase = U/ml). For each medium, triplicate culture dishes from 5 different experiments were used. Significantly different from the control value observed in each group: *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01.