Chronic high-fat diet feeding reduces the rate of postprandial triglyceride absorption independent of intestinal...

Pancreatic lipase is the major enzyme responsible for breaking down dietary triglycerides in the intestines. A previous report suggested that intestinal angiopoietin-like 4 (ANGPTL4) might serve as an endogenous inhibitor of pancreatic lipase and thus regulate fat absorption. As Angptl4 expression is reportedly induced by high-fat-diet feeding, we hypothesized that induction of ANGPTL4 by a high-fat diet would lead to an increased inhibition of pancreatic lipase, less breakdown of dietary triglycerides, and ultimately a reduced rate of postprandial triglyceride absorption. To test this hypothesis, we generated intestinal epithelial cell-specific ANGPTL4 knockout mice, fed them diets with varying levels of fat, and measured postprandial triglyceride absorption and intestinal triglyceride lipase activity. As we hypothesized, we found that chronic high-fat feeding reduced the rate of postprandial triglyceride absorption in mice. However, this regulation of postprandial triglyceride absorption appeared to be largely independent of ANGPTL4, as similar decreases were observed in both wild-type and intestinal epithelial cell-specific ANGPTL4 knockout mice. We conclude that there is a mechanism by which chronic high-fat feeding reduces the rate of secretion of dietary triglycerides into the circulation, but that this mechanism does not require intestinal ANGPTL4.