Octanoate metabolism in primary culture of chicken hepatocytes: evidence for high-capacity octanoate esterification

[14C]Octanoate metabolism was measured in chicken primary hepatocytes, as a function of time in culture. [14C]Octanoate was essentially converted to oxidative products (CO2 and ketone bodies) in freshly isolated cells while [14C]palmitate was exclusively esterified in triacylglycerols (TG). In contrast, in cultured cells, [14C] octanoate was exclusively recovered in TG as radiolabeled octanoate (33%), but also as newly synthetised fatty acids mainly palmitate (37%), stearate (18%), oleate (4.4%), decanoate (2.4%), and myristate (2.2%). Therefore, it may be suggested that the enhanced lipogenic conditions induced by culture enhance octanoate flux toward TG synthesis in this model. It is further suggested that chicken hepatocytes in primary culture could be a useful model to study regulatory mechanisms of several lipogenic enzymes.