The effect of chronic ethanol administration on membrane-bound enzymes of rat liver

The chronic treatment with small amounts of ethanol associated with a fat-poor diet produces enzyme modifications in rat liver subcellular fractions. All the enzymic activities tested in this paper increased or remained unaffected after alcohol treatment. Part of the observed effects could be ascribed to the proliferation of the endoplasmic reticulum which follows to ethanol intoxication; the increase of some enzyme activities, in the plasma membranes of treated animals seems to be probably due to modification of the environment of the membrane.