Role of the Liver in Inflammation

INFLAMMATION leads to the appearance in plasma and inflammatory exudates of a protein with anti-inflammatory properties^1–4. The greatest concentration of this anti-inflammatory protein (AIP) occurs relatively late after injury², which suggests that it plays a role in the later stages of the inflammatory reaction and during healing. The synthesis of the protein is shown here to be similar to that of most other plasma proteins in that it occurs in the liver, which raises the question of the extent to which inflammation is influenced or controlled by the rates of synthesis of plasma proteins.