Book excerpt: The Isolated Hepatocyte: Use in Toxicology and Xenobiotic Biotransformations covers the link between research on the isolated hepatocyte and the disciplines of cell culture, toxicology, metabolism, and molecular biology. This book is composed of 11 chapters and begins with an overview of the regulation of liver growth, sulfation, glucuronidation of xenobiotics in specific liver sites. The next chapters deal with toxicology studies in cultured hepatocytes from various species and the in vitro control of hepatocyte proliferation. These topics are followed by discussions of choices and methods of cytotoxicity measures; hepatoxicity of metals; the metabolism and toxicity of xenobiotics in a primary culture; and the mechanism of carcinogen-induced pleiotropic drug resistance in hepatocytes. The concluding chapters describe the in vivo and in vitro measurement of chemically-induced DNA repair in hepatocytes, as well as the genotoxicity studies with human hepatocytes. This book is intended primarily to toxicologists and researchers.