BILE ACIDS

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 BILE ACIDS
• The liver secretes a clear, golden-yellow, viscous fluid
known as bile.
• It is stored in the gall bladder and is mainly useful for
digestive system.
• Bile consists of inorganic (chiefly HCO3-, Cl-, Na+, K+,
etc.) ions as well as organic compounds.
• In organic compounds the main constituents are bile
acids, bile pigments, fatty acids and cholesterol.

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 BILE ACIDS
• The bile acids are present as the sodium salt
of amide with glycine or taurine.
E.g: Sodium glycolate (glycine + cholic acid) and
taurocholate (taurine + cholic acid).
• Generally they are found to be hydroxyl
derivatives of either 5β-cholanic acid (cholanic
acid) or 5α-cholanic acid (allocholanic acid).
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 BILE ACIDS
• More than 20 natural bile acids have been characterised.
The structures of cholanic acid, allocholanic acid and
their derivatives are given below.

• The most abundant bile acids in human bile are

 cholic acid (25-60% of the total bile acids),

 Deoxycholic acid (5-25% of the total bile acids)

 Chenodeoxycholic acid (30-50% of the total bile acids)

 Lithocholic acid

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• Bile acids differ from each other in the position
and number of hydroxyl groups. In bile acids,
the position of the hydroxyl groups may be any
one of the following positions: 3, 6, 7, 11, 12
and 23.

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5β-Cholanic acid

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5α-Cholanic acid

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 Functions of bile acids
1. They facilitate digestion of fats by emulsifying them
and thereby increasing the surface area of the
material for pancreatic enzymes. Moreover,
emulsifying process converts fats (which are
insoluble in water) into water soluble compounds
which can be easily absorbed in the intestine.

2. They also activate the enzyme cholesterol esterase

and pancreatic lipase.
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 Functions of bile acids
3. They help in the absorption of cholesterol, fat
soluble vitamins (A, D, K) etc. by forming water
soluble complexes.

4. They also keep cholesterol in solution, if the

ratio between bile acids and cholesterol falls
than the normal, cholesterol is precipitated and
forms gallstones in liver, and gall bladder.
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 Enterohepatic circulation of bile salts
The bile acids in the bile entering the intestine
are rapidly absorbed into the blood, taken back
by the liver and reutilized. This is called
enterohepatic circulation of bile salts.
Unabsorbed bile acids are attacked by bacteria
and decomposed into various products which
are excreted in faeces.

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