Regulation
As surfactants or detergents, bile acids are potentially toxic to cells, and their concentrations are tightly regulated. They function as a signaling molecule in the liver and the intestines by activating a nuclear hormone receptor, FXR, also known by its gene name NR1H4. Activation of FXR in the liver inhibits synthesis of bile acids, and is one mechanism of feedback control when bile acid levels are too high. FXR activation by bile acids during absorption in the intestine increases transcription and synthesis of FGF19, which will then inhibit bile acid synthesis in the liver. Emerging evidence associates FXR activation with alterations in triglyceride metabolism, glucose metabolism, and liver growth.
Read more about this topic: Bile Acids
Famous quotes containing the word regulation:
“Nothing changes my twenty-six years in the military. I continue to love it and everything it stands for and everything I was able to accomplish in it. To put up a wall against the military because of one regulation would be doing the same thing that the regulation does in terms of negating people.”
—Margarethe Cammermeyer (b. 1942)
“Lots of white people think black people are stupid. They are stupid themselves for thinking so, but regulation will not make them smarter.”
—Stephen Carter (b. 1954)
“Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness; and if these be favourable to virtue and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behavior.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)