Abstract
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&E staining and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). PCR assessed donor cell presence in recipient livers for the sex-determining region Y (SRY) gene using liver DNA. For a subset of animals, the nuclei of donor cells were labeled before injection to support short-term localization, and the limitations of this approach were considered in the interpretation.
Findings: SRY amplification was detected in groups receiving hepatocyte transplantation, supporting the presence of donor-derived cells in recipient liver tissue. However, no clear difference in SRY detection was observed between the transplantation group and the transplantation plus stearic acid group. Histopathological and ultrastructural assessments indicated that APAP induced marked hepatic injury, while transplantation groups showed features consistent with partial structural improvement; 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.