Low concentration of HgCl₂drives rat hepatocytes to autophagy/apoptosis/necroptosis in a time-dependent manner

Mercuric chloride effects on adult rat oval cells-induced apoptosis

“…Oval cells exposed to low concentration of Hg were able to accommodate changes at the cellular level producing minimum cell death throughout the experiment. It is interesting to note that 5 mM HgCl 2 did not induce significant oval cell death but exerts potential to affect liver functions corroborating our earlier study (Chatterjee et al 2013b) with differentiated hepatocytes. Generation of reactive oxygen species due to oxidative stress plays a critical role in host defense and regulation of various cellular signaling pathways (Kyle et al 1987).…”

“…Despite extensive efforts to use hepatic progenitor cells as an ideal source for liver repopulation (Fausto and Campell 2003), the response of oval cells to environmental signals remain largely unknown. Mercury, a ubiquitous hepatotoxicant promotes Toxicological & Environmental Chemistry 1729 exicitotoxicity (Ung et al 2010;Farooqui and Farooqui 2011) when introduced into a system, resulting in the induction of programed cell death (Shenker, Guo, and Shapiro 2000;Ben-Ozer et al 2000;Chatterjee et al 2012Chatterjee et al , 2013b. Oval cells exposed to low concentration of Hg were able to accommodate changes at the cellular level producing minimum cell death throughout the experiment.…”

“…A 12.7% death of differentiated hepatocytes was noted at 8 hr of treatment with 5 mM HgCl 2 (Chatterjee et al 2013b). In the present investigation, therefore, this exposure concentration was selected to assess Hg-induced oval cell death.…”

“…The characteristic changes in cellular level are protein precipitation, enzyme inhibition, cell swelling, nuclear degradation, ATP depletion, and mitochondrial damage (Ben-Ozer et al 2000;Patnaik et al 2010;Schlatter et al 2011;Chatterjee et al 2012Chatterjee et al , 2013aChatterjee et al , 2013b. These pathological conditions drive cytotoxicity towards different types of programed cell death (Ben-Ozer et al 2000;Ung et al 2010;Chatterjee et al 2013b).…”

“…Nonlethal dose of Hg is known to induce oxidative stress mediated apoptosis in rat liver (Patnaik et al 2010). Recently Chatterjee et al (2013b) indicated that 5 mM HgCl 2 initiates autophagy in vitro within 30 min of incubation and drives hepatocytes to apoptosis followed by necroptosis in a time-dependent manner.…”