Hepatic bile flow

The hepatocyte is a polar cell that can remove a variety of molecules from blood and excrete them into bile. This review is primarily concerned with the mechanism of transport of the principal anions--the bile salts--across the sinusoidal membrane, their passage through the cell, and excretion across the canalicular membrane. Clearly much of this process is poorly understood, but the study of the membrane stages should be facilitated by the ability to prepare purified sinusoidal and canalicular membrane vesicles. For example, the relative importance of albumin-binding sites as well as the putative bile salt receptor proteins can be better assessed. It seems likely that although the interaction of bile salts with receptor proteins is important, it is an initial event that puts the bile salt in the correct place for uptake to occur. The driving force for uptake is the Na+ gradient created across the basolateral membrane by the activity of the Na+-K+-ATPase. Within the cell, various modes of transport have been suggested. Several authors emphasize the importance of protein binding of bile salts, either because of their presumed ability to maintain the concentration of these anions in the hepatocyte below their critical micellar concentration or because of their putative role in transport. It is important to understand these aspects of the role of cytosolic proteins for several reasons. Knowledge of the true concentration of free bile salt within the cell should allow estimation of whether the electrochemical gradient is sufficient for bile salts to accumulate in bile without the need for active transport of molecules from the cell into the canaliculus. The compartmental model described by Strange et al. (153) offers one theoretical way of determining the concentration of free bile salt, although the problems inherent in studying amphipath binding to the membranes of subcellular organelles (31) require that the model be reevaluated by the hygroscopic-desorption method. The second role suggested for the cytosolic bile salt-binding proteins is as transport proteins. As discussed in section VI, I think it is unlikely that the proteins identified so far act in this way, and it is more likely that movement occurs by diffusion in free solution. It is also important to determine the possible involvement of subcellular organelles such as Golgi bodies. Little is known of their role in the transport of bile salts or indeed where bile salt micelles are formed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)