Two Sites of Bile Formation as Determined by Mannitol and Erythritol Clearance in the Guinea Pig

E. L. Forker

doi:10.1172/JCI105612

^{Department of Physiology and Biophysics and the Gastroenterology Research Laboratories, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa}

^{Department of Medicine, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa}

†

Markle Scholar in Academic Medicine; Research Associate, Veterans Administration Hospital, Iowa City, Iowa.

Address requests for reprints to Dr. E. L. Forker, Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52240.

Submitted for publication December 5, 1966; accepted March 23, 1967.

Supported by U. S. Public Health Service grant AM-09892.

Abstracted in J. Lab. clin. Med. 1966, 68, 875.

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Published July 1, 1967 - More info

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Abstract

If water and inert solutes are assumed to pass from blood to bile through a fixed population of membrane pores, the changes in clearance produced by dehydrocholate suggest that osmotic filtration rather than diffusion is the predominant mode of transfer for mannitol and erythritol. Bile produced in the canaliculi is modified in the interlobular ducts by the action of secretin. If distal fluid transfer is an important determinant of the choleresis evoked by dehydrocholate, the mechanism appears to effect a net secretion or reabsorption of fluid at a rate roughly proportional to the rate of flow in the canaliculi.