Hepatic autophagy is important for ammonia detoxification. (A and B) Representative bands and densitometric quantifications of Western blotting of ATG7, p62, and LC3 of livers harvested at 1.0 h post-NH4Cl injection from Atg7fl/fl mice injected with HDAd-Cre or with a control vector (HDAd-AFP) 4 wk before the ammonia challenge (n ≥ 3/group). GAPDH was used as loading control. (C) Serum ammonia at baseline, 15 min and 0.5 h after i.p. injections of NH4Cl in Atg7fl/fl mice injected with HDAd-Cre (n = 5) or HDAd-AFP vector (n = 4). (D) Serum ammonia in WT (Control, n = 12) and TFEB liver-specific knockout mice (TFEB LiKO, n = 13) at baseline, 0.5 and 1.0 h after i.p. injections of NH4Cl. (E) Serum ammonia in WT mice injected with HDAd-TFEB or HDAd-AFP vector (n = 5/group) at baseline, 0.5 and 1.0 h after i.p. injections of NH4Cl. (F and G) Urea and glutamine in livers harvested at 2.0 h post-NH4Cl injection in WT mice injected with HDAd-AFP or HDAd-TFEB (n = 5/group). Control untreated WT mice are included (n = 3). *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01. ns, not significant.