Isolation of mouse liver cells: perfusion technique and metabolic evaluation.

A procedure has been developed for isolation of intact mouse liver cells by collagenase perfusion. Mouse livers were perfused in situ via the heart. The cell metabolism was evaluated as respiratory activity and protein synthesis. The results agree with those which have been reported for isolated rat liver cells. A shortcoming was the low yield of liver cells obtained per animal. The procedure described here seems to offer a convenient means by which it is possible to obtain isolated mouse liver cells which are appropriate for acute metabolic experiments.