H. Segner, ISOLATION AND PRIMARY CULTURE OF TELEOST HEPATOCYTES, Comparative biochemistry and physiology. Part A, Molecular & integrative physiology, 120(1), 1998, pp. 71-81
The review discusses procedures for isolation and primary culture of t
eleostean hepatocytes and the influence of different culture condition
s on the physiology of the cells in vitro. As a routine method to isol
ate fish liver cells, enzymatic dissociation of the tissue, either in
situ or after removal from the donor animal, is applied. In primary cu
lture, piscine hepatocytes usually are maintained as monolayer culture
in both serum-free or serum-containing media. Under such simple condi
tions, teleostean liver cells conserve viability and functional differ
entiation for approximately 5 days. For longer-term culture, in vitro
conditions have to be developed which mimic more closely the in vivo s
ituation. Medium composition and particularly the cellular micro-envir
onment, i.e. the presence of extracellular matrix or of homologous and
heterologous cell-cell interactions, appear to be of importance for e
xtended conservation of liver-specific gene expression in vitro. Among
the various possible alternatives to the monolayer technique: hepatoc
yte aggregate cultures are particularly promising. Primary cultures ar
e an attractive model to study time-dependent induction processes unde
r defined experimental conditions, however, the potential of this syst
em to extend our understanding of basic aspects of fish liver physiolo
gy and its adaptive responses to environmental change has remained lar
gely unexplored. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.