Serum-free medium conditioned by confluent cultures of JM1 of JM2 rat hepatocellular carcinoma cells stimulated DNA synthesis in primary cultures of adult rat hepatocytes in a dose-dependent, saturable manner and in the absence of epidermal growth factor. The hepatotrophic activity was nondialyzable in Mr 50,000 cutoff membranes, heat (60 degrees C) and acid stable, and sensitive to trypsin and...

Mevalonate pyrophosphate decarboxylase (MPD) is found in the 100000 x g supernatant fraction of cells or tissues and is considered to be a cytosolic protein. Recently, other groups reported that MPD is mostly located in the peroxisomes. In this study, we used two different methods to determine whether MPD is predominantly located in the peroxisomes or the cytosol of rat hepatocytes. 1) In perme...

The effects and interaction between cAMP-analogue dibutyryl-cAMP and calmodulin antagonists were investigated on de novo synthesis and secretion of lipids in cultures of hepatoma McArdle-RH7777 cells and normal rat hepatocytes. Dibutyryl cAMP caused a significant decrease in the secretion of de novo synthesized triacyl [3H] glycerol in both cultures of McArdle cells and rat hepatocytes. The ...

The aim of the study was the evaluation of cadmium effects on the activity of antioxidant enzymes in rat hepatocytes. The studies were conducted with isolated rat hepatocytes incubated for 1 or 2 hours in a modified (deprived of carbonates with phosphates) Williams' E medium (MWE) in the presence of cadmium chloride (25, 50 and 200 microM). Hepatocytes incubated in the MWE medium without cadmiu...

alkaloids of the aerial parts of chelidonium were extracted in the salt form, and their aqueous solutions were prepared in different concentrations. rat hepatocytes were obtained by liver perfusion. the alkaloidal solutions were added to suspensions of hepatocytes in petri dishes and the mixtures were incubated. two types of controls have been used in one type. no alkaloidal extract was added t...

background: combination of glycation and oxidation is associated with diabetes mellitus. the aim of this study was to clarify the effect of glycated proteins in presence of transition metal ions on production of reactive oxygen species (ros) in rat hepatocyte suspension.  methods: glycated albumin was prepared by incubation of bovine serum albumin with 100 mm glucose in 0.3 m phosphate buffer a...

A promoter fragment (-457 to +65) of the human cytosolic phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase gene, which by analogy to the rat promoter contains regulatory regions conferring glucagon (cAMP) and insulin responsiveness to the phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase gene, was cloned into a luciferase expression vector and transfected into cultured rat hepatocytes and human hepatoblastoma cells (HepG2) to...

Serum albumin is regarded as an important and indispensable protein, but analbuminemic rats established by Sumi Nagase in 1977 seems to exhibit few symptoms in spite of an almost total lack of albumin in the serum. The albumin gene of analbuminemic rats was found to have a seven-base-pair deletion in an intron, close to exon-intron junction, resulting in the formation of non-functional mRNA in ...

Recently, sandwich-cultured (SC) rat hepatocytes have been used as an in vitro model to assess biliary excretion of drugs and xenobiotics. The purpose of the present study was to validate the use of SC rat hepatocytes for the in vitro assessment of P-glycoprotein (P-gp)-mediated biliary drug excretion. The specific and fluorescent P-gp substrate rhodamine 123 (Rh123) and the P-gp substrate digo...