Biliary lipid secretion and its control. Effect of taurodehydrocholate.

Multiple short pulses of taurocholate (TC) brought about, in isolated perfused rat livers, the secretion of phospholipid and cholesterol into bile; the lipids showed an appreciable lag period behind the bile-salt secretion, and there was considerable variability in response, both between low and high dose pulses of TC and, at the higher dose, even between individual livers. When a background continuous infusion of taurodehydrocholate (a hydrophilic non-micelle-forming bile-salt analogue) was superimposed upon the short TC pulses, the lipid secretion showed much better control, and the lipid peaks were of more uniform size, following more closely, or more coincident with, the bile-salt output peaks. Taurodehydrocholate may provide a signal for the control of the supply and delivery of lipid vesicles to the bile-canalicular membrane, from where the lipid vesicles are then removed by the action of the pulses of TC.