The effect of fat and cholesterol-enriched diets on the pancreatic and intestinal sterol ester hydrolase in the rat.

The effect of diets enriched with triacylglycerol (TAG) and cholesterol (C) or cholesteryl ester (CE) on the content of sterol ester hydrolase (SEH) was studied in the pancreas and small intestine of the rat. The results showed that both organs increased their content of SEH in response to chronic ingestion of the experimental diets. The pancreatic content of SEH in rats fed a TAG-supplemented diet increased by 22% whereas in the animals on a TAG and C or CE--enriched food it increased by 40 and 80% respectively. The SEH-content of intestinal mucosa from the animals ingesting that TAG-enriched diet rose about 35% and that in the animals maintained on the C and CE--supplemented diets was about three times higher than in control animals. Under physiological conditions there were significant differences in the distribution of SEH between the jejunal and ileal segments of the small intestine, the jejunal fragment showing a 2.5 times higher specific activity of SEH than the ileal one. Under conditions of a large dietary load of C and CE, both segments acquired an enhanced, almost equal, efficiency of metabolizing the absorbed C.