Metabolic Adaptation of the Small Intestine to Short- and Medium-Term High-Fat Diet Exposure.

The small intestine is the main organ involved in the digestion and absorption of nutrients. It is in an ideal position to sense the availability of energy in the lumen in addition to its absorptive function. Consumption of a high-fat diet (HFD) influences the metabolic characteristics of the small intestine. Therefore, to better understand the metabolic features of the small intestine and their changes in response to dietary fat, we characterized the metabolism of duodenal, jejunal, and hepatic cell lines and assessed the metabolic changes in the enterocytes and the liver after short-term (3 days) or medium-term (14 days) HFD feeding in mice. Experiments with immortalized enterocytes indicated a higher glycolytic capacity in the duodenal cell line compared to the other two cell lines, whereas the jejunal cell line exhibited a high oxidative metabolism. Short-term HFD feeding induced changes in the expression of glucose and lipid metabolism-related genes in the duodenum and the jejunum of mice, but not in the liver. When focusing on fatty acid oxidation both, short- and medium-term HFD feeding induced an upregulation of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A, the key enzyme of ketogenesis, at the protein level in the intestinal epithelial cells, but not in the liver. These results suggest that HFD feeding induces an early adaptation of the small intestine rather than the liver in response to a substantial fat load. This highlights the importance of the small intestine in the adaptation of the body to the metabolic changes induced by HFD exposure. J. Cell. Physiol. 232: 167-175, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Tailoring Emulsions for Controlled Lipid Release: Establishing in vitro-in Vivo Correlation for Digestion of Lipids.

The use of oil-in-water emulsions for controlled lipid release is of interest to the pharmaceutical industry in the development of poorly water soluble drugs and also has gained major interest in the treatment of obesity. In this study, we focus on the relevant in vitro parameters reflecting gastric and intestinal digestion steps to reach a reliable in vitro-in vivo correlation for lipid delivery systems. We found that (i) gastric lipolysis determines early lipid release and sensing. This was mainly influenced by the emulsion stabilization mechanism. (ii) Gastric mucin influences the structure of charge-stabilized emulsion systems in the stomach, leading to destabilization or gel formation, which is supported by in vivo magnetic resonance imaging in healthy volunteers. (iii) The precursor structures of these emulsions modulate intestinal lipolysis kinetics in vitro, which is reflected in plasma triglyceride and cholecystokinin concentrations in vivo.