Effect of methyl glyoxal on enzyme release and on protein synthesis and secretion by isolated hepatocytes

The experiments reported in this paper were designed to study some aspects of protein metabolism in isolated rat liver cells treated with methyl glyoxal. Concentrations of this drug not inducing cell damage were able to decrease hepatocyte protein synthesis and secretion. The results obtained using liver cells whose protein was prelabelled suggest that the alpha-ketoaldehyde acts not only through an impairment of protein synthesis but also affecting the secretion pathway itself.