Abstract
We investigated the ammonia removal activity of agaroseencapsulated hepatocytes with a view of designing an artificial liver support for detoxification by xenogeneic reactor cells. The agarose-encapsulated or monolayer hepatocytes efficiently removed exogenous ammonia in culture medium (initial concentration; 500μg/dl) 6 hrs after the addition. The activity of monolayer hepatocytes was almost the same as that of encapsulated cells immediately after their isolation and one day after and the monolayer cells maintained the stable activity during three days of the culture, whereas the encapsulated hepatocytes decreased their activity rapidly. When the hepatocytes cultured on cellulose were encapsulated with agarose, the cells showed a good specific activity of ammonia removal. This suggests that the conditions on the microcarrier seemed to be suitable as an inside environment of agarose. In addition, we developed a rat model for in vivo estimation of ammonia removal by hybrid artificial liver. Wake-up time of the animal from enflurane anesthesia was evaluated as a parameter of ammonia-induced encephalopathy.
