Use of Cultured Cells to Study Alcohol Metabolism

The use of cells grown in the laboratory (i.e., cultured cells) in alcohol research has many advantages. Among these are the ability to investigate individual metabolic pathways, the ability to precisely control exposure to ethanol and its metabolites in the absence of confounding variables, and the uniformity of genetically identical (i.e., clonal) cell lines. Additionally, because of the cost and relative ease of culturing large quantities of cells, many more experimental replicas may be performed to confirm findings. As described in this article, the use of cultured cells has contributed greatly to the understanding of the mechanisms by which alcohol metabolism affects cells and ultimately results in alcoholic liver disease.