Liver steatosis or Fatty liver disease (FLD) is a disease that is normally associated with alcoholism or obesity in humans. This reversible condition is an abnormal retention of fat within the hepatocytes and results in an accumulation of triglyceride within the hepatocytes. Macrovesicular steatosis is the most common form of steatosis, where large droplets containing triglycerides displace the nuclei to the periphery. Often macrovesicular steatosis can be present with both large droplets (ld-MaS) and small droplets (sd-MaS), that grow together into a mass.
This protocol can be used to quantify fat within hepatocytes in H&E stained liver sections. The APP detects the total area of liver tissue and quantifies the fat inside the tissue. The identified fat droplets are separated into small-droplets (sd-MaS) and large-droplets (ld-MaS). In the end, the total fat percentage and the fat percentage of each of the two droplet types are given.