AJP - Cell Physiology, Vol 234, Issue 3 122-C130, Copyright © 1978 by American Physiological Society
Glucose metabolism by adult hepatocytes in primary culture and by cell lines from rat liver
D. M. Bissell, G. A. Levine and M. J. Bissell
The metabolic fate of [U-14C]glucose has been examined in detail in adult
rat hepatocytes in primary monolayer culture, as well as in two permanent
cell lines--Buffalo rat liver (BRL) and transplantable rat hepatoma (HTC)
cells-derived from normal rat liver and from rat hepatoma, respectively.
Under defined conditions of incubation, at a glucose concentration of 5.5
mM, the three types of cultured liver cells exhibited pronounced
differences in glucose metabolism. Primary cultures, like the intact liver,
differed from the cell lines in consuming relatively small amounts of
glucose and converting approximately 50% of the total metabolized glucose
to lactate. By contrast, the permantent cell lines consumed glucose at a
40-fold greater rate than did primary cultures, converting 80--90% of the
carbohydrate to lactate. Oxidative metabolism of glucose carbon also
differed among the three types of liver culture. Of the total
[U-14C]glucose consumed, primary cultures converted approximately 30% to
labeled CO2 per hour, whereas the liver cell lines converted 5--10%.
Finally, glucose metabolism in primary culture exhibited adaptation as
hepatocytes aged in culture, shifting progressively toward the pattern
exhibited by the permanent cell lines. This change occurred over a time
course similar to that for other kinds of functional change in hepatocytes
in primary culture and thus may be relevant to the general problem of
phenotypic alteration in liver cell culture.
