Relative contributions of parenchymal and non-parenchymal (sinusoidal) liver cells in the uptake of chylomicron remnants.

The relative contributions of parenchymal cells and non-parenchymal (sinusoidal) cells to the in vivo hepatic uptake of chylomicron remnants was measured 30 min after intravenous injection into rats. The chylomicron remnants were labeled with [3H]leucine, which was almost exclusively present in apolipoprotein B. The isolated non-parenchymal cells (a mixture of Kupffer cells and endothelial cells) contained 6.7 times more apolipoprotein B radioactivity per mg cell protein than the isolated parenchymal cells. It was calculated that the contributions of non-parenchymal and parenchymal liver cells to the total hepatic uptake of chylomicron remnants are 35% and 65%, respectively.