We investigated the expression profiles of rat fibrotic liver induced by bile duct ligation and scission (BDL/S) using the 3'-directed cDNA libraries. The possibility that the 3'directed cDNA library represents the mRNA population faithfully was examined by northern blots. During the northern analysis based on fibrotic liver expression profile, we found for the first time that purine specific sodium nucleoside cotransporter (SPNT) was upregulated in BDL/S-induced fibrotic liver. To determine whether the accumulation of bile juice could affect the expression of SPNT mRNA or not, we examined the change of SPNT mRNA expression at 3, 14, 28 days after BDL/S operation. No change in SPNT expression was observed in rat liver at 3 days after surgery. In contrast, there were significant increases in SPNT expression at 14 and 28 days after surgery. We also examined whether chronic liver damage affected SPNT mRNA expression. SPNT mRNA level was significantly increased in BDL/S-induced fibrotic rat liver, whereas no significant change was obserbed in fibrotic livers chronically exposed to carbon tetrachloride or dimethylnitrosamine. From the above results, although further study might be needed, it was considered that the increment of SPNT mRNA in BDL/S liver morphological compatibility to human was remarkable.