Introduction: Hepatocyte transplantation has been investigated as an alternative approach for acute liver injury; however, factors influencing engraftment and tissue response remain incompletely defined. This study evaluated whether dietary stearic acid modifies histological and ultrastructural outcomes following hepatocyte transplantation in a rat model of acetaminophen (APAP)-induced acute liver failure. Methods: Nine-week-old Wistar rats were used; male rats served as hepatocyte donors and female rats as recipients. Acute liver injury was induced by intraperitoneal APAP (1 g/kg). A selected group received stearic acid–enriched food pellets (180 g/kg pellet) for 10 days. Twenty-four hours after APAP administration, 1×107 freshly isolated hepatocytes were injected into the lower pole of the spleen. Liver tissues were evaluated using H stearic acid supplementation did not produce a distinct quantitative advantage over transplantation alone in the reported endpoints. DAPI-positive cell counts are reported as mean±SEM for each group. Conclusion: In this APAP-induced acute liver failure model, hepatocyte transplantation was associated with histological and ultrastructural changes consistent with partial recovery. Dietary stearic acid, as administered here, did not demonstrate a robust additional effect over transplantation alone based on the presented analyses. Further studies using validated long-term cell tracking and expanded quantitative endpoints are warranted.
Herab et al. (Wed,) studied this question.