Isolation and partial characterizations of oval and hyperplastic bile ductular cell-enriched populations from the livers of carcinogen and noncarcinogen-treated rats.

An oval cell-enriched population was isolated using two isopyknic centrifugation steps in Percoll gradients from the livers of young adult male rats maintained for 6 to 12 weeks on a choline-deficient diet containing 0.05% DL-ethionine. This cell population equilibrated sharply at densities ranging between 1.07 and 1.08 g/ml, possessed a mean cell diameter in fixed-cell smears of 13.6 micron, and showed viabilities of greater than 95% as judged by trypan blue dye exclusion. Contamination of this population by hepatocytes and Kupffer cells was determined to be less than 1% and between 4 and 14%, respectively. gamma-Glutamyl transpeptidase activity was demonstrated both biochemically and histochemically to be the most constant marker for evaluating the oval cell-enriched population isolated at various times over the 6 to 12 weeks of the choline-deficient/DL-ethionine dietary regimen. In contrast, the percentages of nonhepatocytic cells showing labeling for DNA synthesis and for alpha-fetoprotein were both found to be the highest in the oval cell-enriched population isolated at 6 weeks and lowest in that obtained at 12 weeks of dietary treatment. Furthermore, at 10 to 11 weeks, 19.2% of the nonhepatocytic cells in this population were positive for albumin, while 2.1% were positive for glucose-6-phosphatase activity, indicating some cells to be intermediate in function between the oval cell and the hepatocyte. In comparison, hyperplastic bile ductular epithelial cells in tissue preparations isolated from the livers of rats previously subjected to 13 weeks of chronic feeding of the noncarcinogenic cholestatic agent, 1-naphthyl isothiocyanate, or at 8 to 13 weeks following bile duct ligation were found to be strongly positive for gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase activity, as well as to be positive for alkaline phosphatase activity, but to be essentially negative for glucose-6-phosphatase activity, glycogen content, and albumin production. However, an occasional bile ductular cell in these preparations was found to exhibit a strong cytoplasmic binding of [6,7-3H]estradiol, an indirect measure of alpha-fetoprotein production. Also, a low, but demonstrable amount of DNA synthesis was noted in the bile ductular cells present in these preparations. Furthermore, a viable cell population highly enriched in bile ductular epithelial cells was isolated by isopyknic centrifugation in Percoll following enzymatic dissociation of the hyperplastic tissue preparation from bile duct ligated rats.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)