The Use of Primary Hepatocytes in Assessment of Drug Safety and Toxicity.

The identification of biomarkers for toxicity is becoming increasingly important for drug discovery and development. This chapter describes the preparation and utilization of primary rat hepatocytes as a cellular model of steatosis. A protocol is presented for dosing the cells with the steatosis-inducing compound amiodarone, along with the conduction of assays for measuring lipid accumulation and mitochondrial function. A differential solubility extraction procedure is also presented, which can be used for proteomic profiling analysis.