Visualization of the transport of primary and secondary bile acids across liver tissue in rats: in vivo study with fluorescent bile acids (original) (raw)
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Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, 1996
Hepatic sinusoidal uptake of bile acids is mediated by defined carrier proteins against unfavourable concentration and electrical gradients. Putative carrier proteins have been identified using bile acid photoaffinity labels and more recently using immunological probes, such as monoclonal antibodies. At the sinusoidal domain, proteins with molecular weights of 49 and 54kDa have been shown to be carriers for bile acid transport. The 49 kDa protein has been associated with the Na'dependent uptake of conjugated bile acids, while the 54 kDa carrier has been involved in the Na+independent bile acid uptake process. Within the hepatocyte, cytosolic proteins, such as the glutathione S-transferase (also designated the Y protein), the Y binders and the fatty acid binding proteins, are able to bind bile acids and possibly facilitate their movement to the canalicular domain. At the canalicular domain a 100 kDa carrier protein has been isolated and it has been shown by several laboratories that this particular protein is concerned with canalicular bile acid transport. The system is ATP-dependent and follows Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Interference with bile acid transport has been demonstrated by several chemicals. The mechanisms by which these chemicals inhibit bile acid transport may explain the apparent cholestatic properties observed in patients and experimental animals treated with these agents. Several studies have shown that Na 'X+-ATPase activity is markedly decreased in cholestasis induced by ethinyloestradiol, taurolithocholate and chlorpromazine. However, other types of interference have been described and the cholestatic effects may be the result of several mechanisms. Cholestasis is associated with several adaptive changes that may be responsible for the accumulation of bile acids and other cholephilic compounds in the blood of these patients. It may be speculated that the nature of these changes is to protect liver parenchymal cells from an accumulation of bile acids to toxic levels. However, more detailed quantitative experiments are necessary to answer questions with regard to the significance of these changes and the effect of various hepatobiliary disorders in modifying these mechanisms. It is expected that the mechanisms by which bile acid transport is regulated and efforts to understand the molecular basis for these processes will be among the areas of future research.
Hepatic uptake and biliary secretion of bile acids in the perfused rat liver
Pharmacological Research, 1992
Hepatic uptake and biliary secretion have been evaluated in the isolated perfused rat liver for cholic, chenodeoxycholic, ursodeoxycholic acid, both free and taurine-conjugated; the physicochemical properties of the bile acids have also been calculated and related to these experimental parameters. Cholic acid disappearance rate from the perfusate was the fastest, followed by that of ursodeoxycholic and chenodeoxycholic; it was also faster for taurine-conjugated bile acids than for their respective unconjugated forms. The recovery in bile was higher for conjugated than for unconjugated bile acids, and, among each class, was higher for cholic than for chenodeoxycholic and ursodeoxycholic. The hepatic uptake correlated negatively (r=-0.99) with the bile acid lipophilicity, while the biliary secretion correlated with the solubility of the molecules. These results show the effect of the physicochemical properties of BA on their hepatic handling, at the physiological concentration of BA in the portal blood.
Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine, 2016
The aim was to develop a method for quantification of hepatobiliary uptake and secretion of conjugated bile acids using PET and the (11)C-labeled conjugated bile acid analog [N-methyl-(11)C]cholylsarcosine ((11)C-CSar). Six pigs (13 experiments) underwent dynamic (11)C-CSar PET of the liver with measurements of hepatic blood perfusion and (11)C-CSar concentrations in arterial, portal and hepatic venous blood. In three pigs (seven experiments) bile was collected from a catheter in the common hepatic duct (CHD). PET data were analyzed by a two-tissue compartmental model with calculation of rate constants for transport of (11)C-CSar between blood, hepatocytes and intra- and extra-hepatic bile ducts. PET results were validated against invasive blood and bile measurements. Directly measured secretion rate of (11)C-CSar into bile was equal to removal rate from blood at steady state. Hepatocytes accordingly did not accumulate bile acids but simply facilitated transport of bile acids from b...
Journal of Clinical Investigation, 1997
Although bile acid transport by bile duct epithelial cells, or cholangiocytes, has been postulated, the details of this process remain unclear. Thus, we performed transport studies with [ 3 H]taurocholate in confluent polarized monolayers of normal rat cholangiocytes (NRC). We observed unidirectional (i.e., apical to basolateral) Na ϩ -dependent transcellular transport of [ 3 H]taurocholate. Kinetic studies in purified vesicles derived from the apical domain of NRC disclosed saturable Na ϩ -dependent uptake of [ 3 H]taurocholate, with apparent K m and V max values of 209 Ϯ 45 M and 1.23 Ϯ 0.14 nmol/mg/10 s, respectively. Reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) using degenerate primers for both the rat liver Na ϩdependent taurocholate-cotransporting polypeptide and rat ileal apical Na ϩ -dependent bile acid transporter, designated Ntcp and ASBT, respectively, revealed a 206-bp product in NRC whose sequence was identical to the ASBT. Northern blot analysis demonstrated that the size of the ASBT transcript was identical in NRC, freshly isolated cholangiocytes, and terminal ileum. In situ RT-PCR on normal rat liver showed that the message for ASBT was present only in cholangiocytes. Immunoblots using a well-characterized antibody for the ASBT demonstrated a 48-kD protein present only in apical membranes. Indirect immunohistochemistry revealed apical localization of ASBT in cholangiocytes in normal rat liver. The data provide direct evidence that conjugated bile acids are taken up at the apical domain of cholangiocytes via the ASBT, and are consistent with the notion that cholangiocyte physiology may be directly influenced by bile acids. ( J. Clin. Invest. 1997. 100:2714-2721.) Key words: biliary epithelia • taurocholate • transport • liver • plasma membrane vesicles Preliminary portions of this work were presented at the 47th meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and have been published in abstract form (1996. Hepatology. 94:897 a ).
Hepatic bile formation: bile acid transport and water flow into the canalicular conduit
American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, 2020
Advances in molecular biology identifying the many carrier-mediated organic anion transporters and advances in microscopy that have provided a more detailed anatomy of the canalicular conduit make updating the concept of osmotically determined canalicular flow possible. For the most part water flow is not transmembrane but via specific pore proteins in both the hepatocyte and the tight junction. These pores independently regulate the rate at which water flows in response to an osmotic gradient and therefore are determinants of canalicular bile acid concentration. Review of the literature indicates that the initial effect on hepatic bile flow of cholestatic agents such as Thorazine and estradiol 17β-glucuronide are on water flow and not bile salt export pump-mediated bile acid transport and thus provides new approaches to the pathogenesis of drug-induced liver injury. Attaining a micellar concentration of bile acids in the canaliculus is essential to the formation of cholesterol-leci...
Ultracentrifugal isolation of vesicular carriers of biliary cholesterol in native human and rat bile
Hepatology, 1987
We have utilized ultracentrifugation of native bile-Metrizamide density gradients to isolate a vesicular transport system or biliary lipids in both man and rat. We identified vesicular structures by electron microscopy. Fresh bile specimens were obtained from bile fistula rats (unsaturated bile) and from patients 1 week after bile duct surgery (supersaturated bile). Metrizamide was dissolved in bile (33% w/v), and continuous density gradients were performed with undiluted bile (density limits = 1.020 to 1.300 gm per ml). The relative distribution of biliary cholesterol, phospholipid and bile salt was studied as a function of the density of the fractions. Approximately 50% of total rat biliary cholesterol and between 61 and 90% of human biliary cholesterol was concentrated in the lightest fractions of the gradients (density < 1.060 gm per ml). In contrast, less than 20% of bile salts was present in fractions with densities lower than 1.060 gm per ml. The highest amounts of bile salts and phospholipids of the bile-Metrizamide density gradients were found in the density range of 1.075 to 1.100 gm per ml in both human and rat bile. More than 80% of biliary proteins was found in fractions with densities < 1.075 gm per ml, and only 2% was found in the cholesterol-rich fraction with density < 1.060 gm per ml in both species. When bile salt concentration was raised in rat bile from 38 to 97 mM by adding taurocholate, the low density cholesterol-rich fraction almost disappeared. Electron microscopy of negatively stained preparations of the fractions with density < 1.060 gm per ml showed 40 to 120 nm vesicles, which were not apparent in the other fractions. Similar vesicles were demonstrated also in fresh rat bile and within the canaliculi after acute depletion of the bile salt pool (biliary bile salt concentration of 3.45 mM; total biliary lipid concentration of 0.25 gm%). The structure of these vesicles was shown in thin sections of liver specimens. They appeared as internal cavities surrounded by a single, continuous 6-nm-thick bilayer. These studies demonstrate that a high proportion of biliary cholesterol is transported in vesicles in human supersaturated native bile and that vesicular carriers are also responsible for the transport of a significant amount of biliary cholesterol in unsaturated rat bile. The presence of vesicles in unsaturated hepatic bile strongly supports the thesis that biliary lipids may be secreted as vesicles from the hepatocyte into the canaliculi.
Hepatology, 1998
Efficient transport of bile acids, a typical characteristic of hepatocytes, is partially lost in most hepatoma cell lines and in normal hepatocytes after some days in culture. We have tested whether the polarized rat hepatoma-human fibroblast hybrid WIF (hybrids between W138 and Fao cells) cells previously obtained by our group were able to perform vectorial transport of the fluorescent bile acid derivative cholylglycylamidofluorescein (CGamF) towards the bile canaliculi (BC). Four different WIF clones were analyzed. All were well polarized, as shown by the formation of spherical and even tubular BC-like structures and by the restricted localization at the BC, visualized by immunofluorescence, of the apical membrane marker HA4, a possible bile acid carrier. WIF-B and its subclone WIF-B9 were found to accumulate CGamF in 65% to 75% of their BC. This transport was time, temperature, and partly sodium dependent and was inhibited by coincubation with the parental natural bile salt cholylglycine. Dinitrophenyl glutathione, a substrate of the canalicular multispecific organic anion transporter, did not inhibit CGamF canalicular secretion, whereas it greatly impaired the canalicular secretion of a non-bile acid organic anion, fluorescein, generated intracellularly from fluorescein diacetate. Confocal microscopy confirmed the presence of CGamF in the cytoplasm, supporting a transcellular route from medium to BC. In contrast, two other polarized clones exhibited a poor ability (WIF 12-6) or no ability (WIF12-1 TG␦) to vectorially transport CGamF. In conclusion, WIF-B and WIF-B9 exhibit not only structural but also functional polarity, at least as far as vectorial organic anion transport is concerned. (HEPATOL-OGY 1998;27:576-583.) Efficient transport of bile acids is a typical characteristic of hepatocytes. To perform this transport, hepatocytes are Abbreviations: BC