Excitable cells often display rapid coordination of hormone-induced intracellular calcium signals. Calcium elevations that begin in a single epithelial cell also may spread to adjacent cells, but coordination of hormone-induced signals among epithelial cells has not been described. We report the use of confocal microscopy to determine the inter- and intracellular distribution of cytosolic calci...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common cancer worldwide and the second cause of cancer-related death. Search for genes/proteins whose expression can discriminate between normal and neoplastic liver is fundamental for diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic purposes. Currently, the most used in vitro hepatocyte models to study molecular alterations underlying transformation inclu...

Coincubation of isolated, intact rat hepatocytes with Salmonella typhimurium tester strain TA 98 (Salmonella/hepatocyte system) has been employed to determine both bacterial mutagenicity and DNA damage in the hepatocytes following treatment with 2-acetylaminofluorene (AAF) and other AAF derivatives. In vivo pretreatment of rats with either 2,3,7,8,-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) or 3-methyl...

Elimadi, Aziz, and Pierre S. Haddad. Cold preservation-warm reoxygenation increases hepatocyte steady-state Ca21 and response to Ca21-mobilizing agonist. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 281: G809–G815, 2001.— Although the role of Ca21 in liver transplantation injury has been the object of several studies, direct evidence for alterations in intracellular Ca21 homeostasis after cold prese...

The accumulation of glycochenodeoxycholate (GCDC) induced hepatocyte apoptosis in cholestasis. However, many hepatocytes still survived GCDC-induced apoptosis. The molecular mechanism for the survival of hepatocytes remains unclear. In the present study, isolated rat hepatocytes were cultured in William's E medium and treated with 50 microM GCDC. DNA, RNA, cell lysate, and nuclear proteins were...

We have localized and identified five rat hepatocyte plasma membrane proteins using hybridoma technology in combination with morphological and biochemical methods. Three different membrane preparations were used as immunogens: isolated hepatocytes, a preparation of plasma membrane sheets that contained all three recognizable surface domains of the intact hepatocyte (sinusoidal, lateral, and bil...

A purified saponin mixture (PSM) isolated from Astragalus corniculatus Bieb. (Fabaceae) was investigated for its protective effect in two models of toxicity, carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) and tert-butyl hydroperoxide (t-BuOOH), using isolated rat hepatocytes. CCl4 undergoes dehalogenation in the liver endoplasmic reticulum. This process leads to trichlormethyl radical (CCl3) formation, initiation...

BACKGROUND Bile acid induced apoptosis in hepatocytes can be antagonised by nuclear factor kappaB (NFkappaB) dependent survival pathways. Sulfasalazine modulates NFkappaB in different cell types. We aimed to determine the effects of sulfasalazine and its metabolites sulfapyridine and 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) on bile acid induced apoptosis in hepatocytes. METHODS Apoptosis was determined ...

The effect of human C-I, C-11, and C-111-2 apolipoproteins on the metabolism of triglyceride in triglyceride emulsions was studied in the in vitro perfused rat liver and the nonreplicating hepatocyte monolayer culture. All three human apolipoproteins delayed hepatic uptake of the triglyceride emulsion, both when the emulsion was supplemented with human apolipoprotein E and without this apolipop...

     It has been proposed that organic nitrates such as glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), used in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, act by producing nitric oxide (NO). However, the biochemical pathway for NO formation from GTN is not well understood. In the present study, we showed that nitrate formation from GTN, by isolated rat hepatocytes, was inhibited about 50% when cellular glutathione w...