CHARACTERIZATION OF A PRIMARY BILE DUCTULAR CELL-CULTURE FROM THE LIVERS OF RATS DURING EXTRAHEPATIC CHOLESTASIS

  • 1 January 1985
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 120  (1) , 67-78
Abstract
The establishment of novel bile ductular cell cultures was accomplished with the use of explants of a hyperplastic bile ductular tissue preparation obtained from rat livers at 10-15 wk after bile duct ligation or a bile ductular cell fraction isolated from this tissue preparation by a procedure involving Percoll density gradient centrifugation. Observations made on these primary explant and monolayer bile ductular cell cultures were limited to the first 3 days of culture where the morphologic features of the bile ductular epithelium remained fairly well preserved, while fibroblast contamination was found to be very low. These cultured cells also retained over this period a high specific activity for the bile ductular cells marker enzyme .gamma.-glutamyl transpeptidase, as well as possessed measurable but decreasing specific activities for leucine aminopeptidase and alkaline phosphatase. Karyotypic analysis of the cultured monolayer cells further showed them to be diploid. In addition, preliminary transplantation studies demonstrated the presence of well-differentiated bile ductular-like structures following inoculation of the freshly isolated bile ductular cell fraction into the interscapular fat pads of recipient rats. [The involvement of ductular cells in hapatocarcinogenesis is discussed.].