Molecules (May 2022)

The Role of Bile Acids in the Human Body and in the Development of Diseases

  • Yulia Shulpekova,
  • Maria Zharkova,
  • Pyotr Tkachenko,
  • Igor Tikhonov,
  • Alexander Stepanov,
  • Alexandra Synitsyna,
  • Alexander Izotov,
  • Tatyana Butkova,
  • Nadezhda Shulpekova,
  • Natalia Lapina,
  • Vladimir Nechaev,
  • Svetlana Kardasheva,
  • Alexey Okhlobystin,
  • Vladimir Ivashkin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27113401
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 27, no. 11
p. 3401

Abstract

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Bile acids are specific and quantitatively important organic components of bile, which are synthesized by hepatocytes from cholesterol and are involved in the osmotic process that ensures the outflow of bile. Bile acids include many varieties of amphipathic acid steroids. These are molecules that play a major role in the digestion of fats and the intestinal absorption of hydrophobic compounds and are also involved in the regulation of many functions of the liver, cholangiocytes, and extrahepatic tissues, acting essentially as hormones. The biological effects are realized through variable membrane or nuclear receptors. Hepatic synthesis, intestinal modifications, intestinal peristalsis and permeability, and receptor activity can affect the quantitative and qualitative bile acids composition significantly leading to extrahepatic pathologies. The complexity of bile acids receptors and the effects of cross-activations makes interpretation of the results of the studies rather difficult. In spite, this is a very perspective direction for pharmacology.

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