The adsorption–desorption behaviour and structure function relationships of bile salts

The digestion of dietary components in the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract is a complex, dynamic, inherently heterogeneous process. A key aspect of the digestion of lipid in the GI tract is the combined action of bile salts, lipase and colipase in hydrolysing and solubilising dispersed lipid. The bile salts are a mixture of steroid acid conjugates with surfactant properties. In order to examine whether the different bile salts have different interfacial properties their dynamic interfacial behaviour was characterised. Differences in the adsorption behaviour to solid hydrophobic surfaces of bile salt species were studied using dual polarisation interferometry and atomic force microscopy (AFM) under physiological conditions. Specifically, the cholates adsorbed more slowly and a significant proportion were irreversibly adsorbed following buffer rinsing; whereas the deoxycholates and chenodeoxycholates adsorbed more rapidly and desorbed to a greater extent following buffer rinsing. The conjugating groups (taurine, glycine) did not influence the behaviour. AFM showed that the interfacial structures that remained following buffer rinsing were also different between these two groups. In addition, the adsorption-desorption behaviour affected the adsorption of colipase to a solid surface. This supports the idea that cooperative adsorption occurs between certain bile salts and colipase to facilitate the adsorption and activity of pancreatic lipase in order to restore lipolytic activity in the presence of bile salts. This study provides insights into how differences in bile salt structure could affect lipase activity and solubilisation of lipolysis products and other lipid-soluble bioactive molecules.