Abstracts
1999 Digestive Disease Week

# 2166 BILE ACID MODULATES INTESTINAL EPITHELIAL CELL MIGRATION
Eric D Strauch, Jian-Ying Wang, Kathleen M Lally, Univ of Maryland, Baltimore, MD; Barbara L Bass, Univ of Maryland & Baltimore VA Med Ctr, Baltimore, MD

The small intestinal mucosa is subjected to repeated minor superficial injury. This injury is repaired by migration of the adjacent epithelial cells via a process called restitution. Bile acid concentrations vary with feeding. While most bile acids are contained within micelles, free bile acid concentrations vary from 0-3 mM. IEC-6 cells, derived from rat small intestinal crypt cells, were grown in Dulbecco's minimal essential medium containing 5% dialyzed fetal bovine serum on matrigel until confluent. The confluent cells were denuded and allowed to migrate in our in vitro model, which mimics early cell division-independent stages of epithelial restitution. The cells were incubated in media alone and with 0.05 mM, 0.5 mM, 1 mM taurodeoxycholic acid (TDCA) and 10 ng/ml of TGFb as a positive control. Cell migration was measured as the number of cells that had migrated across the wounded edge 8 hours after wounding. As a major component of the intraluminal small bowel succus, we hypothesize that bile acid could modulate epithelial repair. 0.05 mM TDCA significantly increased cell migration versus control (P<0.05), while TDCA concentrations of 0.5 mM and 1 mM had no effect. TDCA augmented migration at low concentration, an effect similar to that of TGFb . No effect was seen with exposure to higher concentrations. The results suggest that epithelial migration can be modulated not only by peptide growth factors, but also low doses of bile acid. Further documentation of this effect is warranted.

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