Biliary secretion in conscious rabbits: role of the enterohepatic circulation of bile salts and of the gall bladder.

The role of enterohepatic circulation of bile salts in biliary secretion in conscious rabbits has been investigated before and after cholecystectomy. Bile flow was higher and bile salt concentration lower in cholecystectomized than in intact rabbits: this could have been caused by a negative feed-back effect on bile salt synthesis as the circulating bile salt pool increased. The effects of cholecystectomy on flow and bile salt concentration balanced each other. Bile flow and bile salt concentration declined after interruption of the enterohepatic circulation in both cholecystectomized and intact rabbits. Furthermore, the percentage of the flow of bile independent of bile salt secretion increased, while that independent of total analysed solutes decreased after the enterohepatic circulation was broken. These results confirm that the decrease in bile flow after interruption of the enterohepatic circulation is due to loss of bile salts and not of electrolytes.