Bile or gall is a bitter yellow,blue and green fluid secreted by hepatocytes from the liver of most vertebrates. In many species, bile is stored in the gallbladder between meals and upon eating is discharged into the duodenum where the bile aids the process of digestion of lipids.

Bile has various components, some of which are produced by hepatocytes in the liver. The main components include:

• Water
• Cholesterol
• Bile pigments
• Bile acids (glycocholic and taurocholic acid)
• Phospholipids (mainly lecithin)
• Bicarbonate and other ions

The bile acids are typically conjugated with salt or glycine and are produced by the liver from cholesterol. They are secreted in bile by hepatocytes along the bile canaliculi, which then join the bile duct, and hence into the gall bladder. Ordinarily the concentration of bile salts in bile is 0.8%, however the gall bladder removes water from the bile, concentrating it between meals. It concentrates it up to 5 times (increasing concentration to 4%), before contracting the walls and releasing it into the duodenum once chyme has entered the small intestine from the stomach.

Production

Bile is produced by hepatocytes in the liver, draining through the many bile ducts that penetrate the liver. During this process, the epithelial cells add a watery solution that is rich in bicarbonates that dilutes and increases alkalinity of the solution. Bile then flows into the common hepatic duct, which joins with the cystic duct from the gallbladder to form the common bile duct. The common bile duct in turn joins with the pancreatic duct to empty into the duodenum. If the sphincter of Oddi is closed, bile is prevented from draining into the intestine and instead flows into the gallbladder, where it is stored and concentrated to up to five times its original potency between meals. This concentration occurs through the absorption of water and small electrolytes, while retaining all the original organic molecules. Cholesterol is also released with the bile, dissolved in the acids and fats found in the concentrated solution. When food is released by the stomach into the duodenum in the form of chyme, the gallbladder releases the concentrated bile to complete digestion.

The human liver can produce close to one litre of bile per day (depending on body size). 95% of the salts secreted in bile are reabsorbed in the terminal ileum and re-used. Blood from the ileum flows directly to the hepatic portal vein and returns to the liver where the hepatocytes reabsorb the salts and return them to the bile ducts to be re-used, sometimes two to three times with each meal.

Physiological functions

Bile salts are composed of a hydrophilic side, and a hydrophobic side. This means that they are more likely to aggregate to form micelles, with the hydrophobic sides towards the centre and hydrophilic towards the outside. In the centre of these micelles are triglycerides, which are separated from a larger globule of lipid.