F30 – GUTS AND GALL: Bile acids in regulation of intestinal epithelial function in health and disease

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Introduction

Bile acids, classically known for their roles in facilitating the digestion and absorption of dietary lipids, are now also appreciated as a family of enteroendocrine hormones that have important roles in regulating many aspects of mam- malian physiology, both within and outside the intestinal tract. Driven largely by the discovery of two new bile acid receptors at the turn of the millennium, the past two de- cades have seen a renaissance in research activity that has firmly placed bile acids as being central to maintenance of our overall health. Disruptions to the processes that control the synthesis, recycling, and excretion of bile acids are associated with the onset of many diseases that can affect the intestine, its accessory organs, and beyond. Significant progress has been made in understanding various molecular mechanisms involved, and there is a rapidly growing inter- est in developing our capacity to target such pathways for disease treatment. Such an idea can hardly be considered as being new, given that as long as 2500 yr ago, bile was considered as comprising two of the four “humors” (black bile and yellow bile) upon which Hippocrates established his long-held system of human medicine (510), while ani- mal gall has been used for centuries in Traditional Eastern Medicine to treat many different ailments (483). However, along with the discovery of new receptors for bile acids, recent years have also seen a growing appreciation of how important these molecules are to human physiology in health and disease. This appreciation has sparked renewed interest in the potential use of bile acids as therapeutic agents.Central to developing our understanding of how bile acids can be therapeutically exploited is an understanding of how they interact with epithelial cells throughout the intestinal tract. These cells line the entire gut and its accessory organs

Source:https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physrev.00054.2017