Effect of dietary state on hepatocyte size

In order to calculate cellular metabolite concentrations, it is necessary to determine accurately the cellular volume. The purpose of the experiments reported here was to determine the effect of dietary state on the volume of hepatocytes isolated from livers of fed, fasted (48 h) or fasted (48 h)-refed (48 h) male Sprague-Dawley rats. Cellular volumes of the essentially spherical hepatocytes were calculated from the diameters of the cells obtained easily and rapidly by using an optical micrometer. Fasting resulted in approximately a two-fold reduction in hepatocyte volume, and refeeding resulted in a return to 83% of the control value. The protein content/1000 cells also dropped two-fold upon fasting but returned to 70% of the control value upon refeeding. This rapid, simple method for determining hepatocyte volumes agrees well with data obtained by more laborious means.