Cell organelles under conditions of stress: 3. the liver cell membrane along the sinusoidal border and the significance of its close association with lipid droplets

ABSTRACT

One of the simplest methods to study lipid droplet deposition is to starve the animal for a few days. In this experiment, normal albino mice were starved for three days and their liver cells were examined for the presence of lipid droplets using the fresh frozen sections, the semithin sections of epon-embedded samples, and also by the electron microscope. Have shown that lipid droplets tend to accumulate along the sinusoidal border of hepatocytes, and to a less extent in the rest of cytoplasm. Cell walls bordering bile canaliculi, however, appeared in close association with numerous Golgi complex areas and no lipid droplets around. The significance of lipid droplet accumulation along the sinusoidal border, and role of this part of cell membrane in lipid metabolism are discussed