Litho cholate

Normally (healthy state), the liver is very efficient in removing the bile salts from portal blood to bile, thus confining them largely to the enterohe-patic circulation so that bile salt concentrations in healthy subjects rarely exceed 5//g/ml in peripheral blood. Values for primary and secondary bile salt concentrations in the serum of healthy subjects are given in Table IV. The concentrations of the two secondary bile salts (deoxycholate and litho-cholate) in serum are very low and seldom exceed 2-3 / g/ml even when primary bile salt concentrations are increased over 20 times normal values. Consequently, when serum bile salt concentrations are increased with hepatobiliary disease, almost all of the increase is accounted for by elevation in the primary bile salt concentrations, and the primary bile salt concentration ratio will include nearly all of the bile salts quantitated. 

Fig. 8. Transformation of methyl litho-cholate by Raney nickel. Gas chromatography of products from the reaction as determined with a Hewlett-Packard Model 402 gas chromatograph fitted with a hydrogen flame detector and a silanized glass U-shaped column (6 ft x 1/4 in o.d.) filled with 3% OV-17 on 100-120 mesh Gas Chrom Q under these conditions flash heater, 280 C column, 260 C detector, 280°C helium, 40 psi at a flow rate of 80 cc/min (85).

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