Histochemical and immunohistochemical evidence for hepatic zone 3 distribution of alcohol dehydrogenase in rats
✍ Scribed by Shinzo Kato; Hiromasa Ishii; Sadakazu Aiso; Shuji Yamashita; Daisuke Ito; Professor Masaharu Tsuchiya
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1990
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 641 KB
- Volume
- 12
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0270-9139
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✦ Synopsis
The distribution of alcohol dehydrogenase in the hepatic acinus was examined by both histochemical and immunohistochemical approaches. The immunohistochemical method using anti-alcohol dehydrogenase antibody indicated zone 3 predominance of this enzyme in the hepatic acinus, whereas a conventional histochemical method showed slight zone 1 predominance. However, when the histochemical technique was improved by using 2% glutaraldehyde instead of formalin for fixation and by adding phenazine methosulfate (0.33 mmolL) to the staining incubation mixture, this method also supported zone 3 predominance of alcohol dehydrogenase. Evidence for zone 3 distribution of alcohol dehydrogenase may be of value in elucidating the mechanism of zone 3 liver damage by alcohol. (HEPATOLOGY 1990;12:66-69.)
Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) is a primary enzyme of ethanol metabolism, converting ethanol to acetaldehyde and NAD to NADH. These metabolic products result in metabolic disturbances in the liver and may play an important role in the development of alcoholic liver damage (1). Because liver injury in alcoholics predominates in zone 3 of the hepatic acinus (1, 21, distribution of ADH in the hepatic acinus could clarify the mechanism of alcoholic liver injury. However, this is still a matter of controversy. Although uniform distribution of ADH in the hepatic acinus was first reported using histochemical means (31, followed by several other indirect approaches (4-6), zone 1 distribution of this enzyme has been widely accepted since its demonstration by Greenberger, Cohen and Isselbacher (7) using a histochemical technique. Thus ADH activity was used as a marker for zone 1 when zone 1 hepatocytes