Measurement of Fatty Acid β-Oxidation in a Suspension of Freshly Isolated Mouse Hepatocytes

Fatty acid β-oxidation is a key metabolic pathway to meet the energy demands of the liver and provide substrates and cofactors for additional processes, such as ketogenesis and gluconeogenesis, which are essential to maintain whole-body glucose homeostasis and support extra-hepatic organ function in the fasted state. Fatty acid β-oxidation occurs within the mitochondria and peroxisomes and is regulated through multiple mechanisms, including the uptake and activation of fatty acids, enzyme expression levels, and availability of cofactors such as coenzyme A and NAD⁺. In assays that measure fatty acid β-oxidation in liver homogenates, cell lysis and the common addition of supraphysiological levels of cofactors mask the effects of these regulatory mechanisms. Furthermore, the integrity of the organelles in the homogenates is hard to control and can vary significantly between preparations. The measurement of fatty acid β-oxidation in intact primary hepatocytes overcomes the above pitfalls. This protocol describes a method for the measurement of fatty acid β-oxidation in a suspension of freshly isolated primary mouse hepatocytes incubated with ¹⁴C-labeled palmitic acid. By avoiding hours to days of culture, this method has the advantage of better preserving the protein expression levels and metabolic pathway activity of the original liver, including the activation of fatty acid β-oxidation observed in hepatocytes isolated from fasted mice compared to fed mice.