Brett E. Jones, Chau R. Lo, Anu Srinivasan, Karen L. Valentino, Mark J. Czaja – 30 December 2003 – Ceramide has been implicated as a second messenger in intracellular signaling pathways leading to apoptosis in nonhepatic cells. To determine whether ceramide can mediate hepatocyte apoptosis, the cytotoxicity of ceramide was determined in rat hepatocytes. The rat hepatocyte cell line, RALA255‐10G, and primary rat hepatocytes were completely resistant to toxicity from 10 to 100 μmol/L C2 ceramide.

Stephan Immenschuh, Janina Stritzke, Shin‐ichiro Iwahara, Giuliano Ramadori – 30 December 2003 – Heme‐binding protein 23 (HBP23) is a cytosolic protein that binds the prooxidant heme with high affinity and has been implicated in the cellular protection against reactive oxygen species (ROS). Because lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulates macrophages to produce large amounts of ROS the gene expression of HBP23 was analyzed during treatment with LPS in cultured rat Kupffer cells (KC).

Robert W. Brock, D. Kirk Lawlor, Kenneth A. Harris, Richard F. Potter – 30 December 2003 – Severe trauma may initiate a systemic inflammatory response, which in turn may result in remote organ injury. After limb ischemia/reperfusion (I/R), intravital fluorescence microscopy was applied to the livers of normotensive rats to investigate the initiation of remote injury to the liver. Additionally, we determined whether Kupffer cell activation and tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) were involved, via perfusion deficits, in such injury.

Guy Zeitoun, Sylvie Escolano, Antoine Hadengue, Nabih Azar, Mustapha El Younsi, Alain Mallet, Marie‐Jeanne Boudet, Jean‐Marie Hay, Serge Erlinger, Jean‐Pierre Benhamou, Jacques Belghiti, Dominique Valla – 30 December 2003 – The aim of this study was to assess the factors, including surgical portosystemic shunts, which affect survival in adults with Budd‐Chiari syndrome.

Paul Angulo, Keith D. Lindor – 30 December 2003

30 December 2003

Frederick J. Suchy – 30 December 2003

Nobuyuki Enomoto, Shunhei Yamashina, Hiroshi Kono, Peter Schemmer, Chantal A. Rivera, Ayako Enomoto, Teruhiro Nishiura, Tetsuro Nishimura, David A. Brenner, Ronald G. Thurman – 30 December 2003 – The continuous intragastric in vivo enteral feeding model in the rat developed by Tsukamoto and French has been very useful; however, it requires surgical expertise. Recently, we found that Kupffer cells isolated from rats treated only once with ethanol were sensitized to endotoxin 24 hours later.

Laurie D. DeLeve, Robert S. McCuskey, Xiangdong Wang, Liping Hu, Margaret K. McCuskey, Robert B. Epstein, Gary C. Kanel – 30 December 2003 – Lack of a reproducible animal model has hampered progress in understanding hepatic veno‐occlusive disease (HVOD). This article characterizes a reproducible model of HVOD. Rats gavaged with monocrotaline, 160 mg/kg, were killed between days 1 and 10.

Albert Pol, Maria Calvo, Albert Lu, Carlos Enrich – 30 December 2003 – The sinusoidal plasma membrane of the hepatocyte is organized into functional and structural microdomains whose origin, maintenance, and functioning are closely related with the endocytic compartment. Three different subcellular fractions, from rat liver, containing caveolin‐1, the structural protein of caveolae, were morphologically and biochemically characterized.