Which hepatocytes should you choose for your ADME Studies?
What are hepatocytes and why are they important?
Hepatocytes are the functional parenchymal cell of the liver. They are important for ADME/DMPK scientists because they’re the cells that carry out the bulk of metabolism for xenobiotic compounds and play a major role in detoxifying the body. Understanding how these functions affect your compound is essential in preclinical drug development.
Hepatocytes make up about 80% of the liver’s volume, but only represent approximately 60% of the total cell population. This basically means that they’re big, and because of their size and other physical properties, we can take advantage of these characteristics to purify them away from other cell types in the liver.