Recent studies have indicated that direct intestinal secretion of plasma cholesterol
significantly contributes to fecal neutral sterol loss in mice. The physiological relevance of
this novel route, which represents a part of the reverse cholesterol transport pathway, has
not been directly established in vivo as yet. We have developed a method to quantify the
fractional and absolute contributions of several cholesterol fluxes to total fecal neutral sterol
loss in vivo in mice, by assessing the kinetics of orally and intravenously administered stable …