Synopsis
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(1)
Globules of fat in enormous numbers appeared in the liver cells of rats fed for three days on margarine or butter as their sole food.
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(2)
This change was studied principally in rolled films of liver incubated for 2 hr at 38°C. Films of incubated fatty liver contained numerous entire hepatocytes in which cellular structure was visible with clarity and definition. In films made from fresh liver, most of the cells were ruptured.
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(3)
The cells in films made from incubated livers of rats fed on margarine or butter showed intense fatty globulation. This change affected most of the cells and much of their cytoplasm was occupied by globules of liquid lipid.
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(4)
Substantial, though less severe, fatty globulation was observed in similarly prepared hepatic films made from rats fed on cow's milk.
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(5)
The cells seen in sections of frozen or wax-embedded liver of these fat-fed animals also contained fatty globules or (after wax-embedding) vacuolar spaces from which globular fat had been dissolved. But the disposition of droplets of lipid or spaces in sections of tissue, exposed to freezing and thawing or to infiltration by molten wax, may be very different from the state of hydrophobic lipid in the living cell.
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(6)
The liquid globules seen ion rolled films, however, were not subjected to these artifactual hazards. The observations on globular fat in rolled films, therefore, confirm the assumption that globules of lipid visible in sections of fatty liver are a real entity of the living cell.
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(7)
It is suggested that the neutral fat of normal liver cells is solubilized within micellar patticles and is thus invisible. The intense fatty globulation which occurs in liver cells of rats fed on margarine or butter probably arises because the amount of intracellular fat rapidly surpasses the quantity which can be solubilized in an invisible micellar state by the surfactants available within the cells. The excess of fat then rapidly forms an additional phase which becomes visible as conspicuous globules of liquid lipid.
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Dixon, K.C., King, A.J. Fatty globulation in the liver of fat-fed rats studied by rolled films. Histochem J 4, 111–126 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01004970
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01004970