Isolation and Primary Culture of Rat Hepatic CellsLing Shen 1, Allix Hillebrand 2, David Q.-H. Wang 3, Min Liu 1
1Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, 2American University in Washington, D.C., 3Department of Internal Medicine, Saint Louis University School of Medicine
Primary hepatocytes provide a valuable tool to evaluate biochemical, molecular, and metabolic functions in a physiologically relevant experimental system. We describe a reliable protocol for rat in situ liver perfusion, which consistently generates viable hepatocytes up to 1.0 × 108 cells per preparation with cell viability between 88 ~ 96%.