Chronic alcohol feeding and its withdrawal on the structure and function of the rat liver plasma membrane: a study with 125I-labelled glucagon binding as a metabolic probe.

The effect of chronic alcohol administration on the structure and function of the rat liver plasma membranes has been investigated. Chronic alcohol administration did not affect the yield of these membranes using conventional isolation procedures. The extent of plasma membrane enrichment or contamination with other interior membranes was identical in the control and alcoholic preparations. The binding of 125I-labelled glucagon to these experimental liver plasma membranes was significantly decreased. Scatchard analysis of the high affinity sites showed a significant reduction (approximately equal to 35%) in receptor number rather than binding affinity, which was not altered. This anomaly persisted through 72-h withdrawal of alcohol. These data suggest that very stable changes were induced in these liver plasma membranes after prolonged alcohol ingestion.