The effects of starving and refeeding on the intra-acinar distribution pattern of alcohol-dehydrogenase activity in rat liver.

Microquantitative determinations of ADH activity were carried out on the livers of male and female rats. The animals were either starved for 84 h, or starved and then refed with a carbohydrate-rich diet for 6 nights. When the enzyme activity is expressed in mumoles/min/g dry weight, fasting does not appear to alter liver ADH activity, while in starved and subsequently refed rats it is diminished by 20%. Microquantitative measurements of ADH activity in 50-150 ng lyophilized tissue samples, microdissected the whole way along the sinusoidal length, made the computer-aided plotting of intra-acinar distribution patterns possible. The results showed that, under the feeding conditions selected, only minor changes in the ADH activity profiles occur in the liver acinus. These are within the range of the standard deviations of the normal mean values. From these results it can be deduced that fasting and refeeding do not lead to specific inhibition or induction of liver ADH activity. - The decrease of ADH activity of total liver (mumol/min) per total body weight in starved rats is obviously the result of a loss of protein which affects the liver cells of all acinar zones almost equally.