Effect of diosgenin on biliary cholesterol transport in the rat.

Biliary cholesterol output in rats was stimulated over 3-fold by feeding diosgenin for 5 days, whereas biliary outputs of phospholipid and bile salts were not changed by diosgenin feeding. Isolating and perfusing the liver without bile salts resulted in a rapid and substantial decrease in biliary bile salt output; bile salt depletion abolished the diosgenin-induced increment in biliary cholesterol output, showing that the diosgenin-elevated biliary cholesterol output was bile-salt-dependent. Diosgenin treatment also produced a significant decrease in biliary alkaline phosphodiesterase I. Fresh bile obtained from control and diosgenin-fed rats was subjected to gel-permeation chromatography in order to separate different-sized biliary cholesterol carriers. Two major peaks of cholesterol were eluted, with cholesterol also being eluted between the peaks. The cholesterol peak eluted at the lower molecular mass (20-30 kDa) was observed in all bile samples. The higher-molecular-mass peak, which was eluted at the void volume, was not observed in all biles; control biles contained very little high-molecular-mass form of cholesterol, whereas biles from the diosgenin group contained up to 47% of cholesterol in the high-molecular-mass fraction. Diosgenin treatment produced a range of elevated biliary cholesterol values which positively correlated with the proportion of cholesterol contained in the high-molecular-mass fraction (r = 0.98). The results show that diosgenin induced a marked bile-salt-dependent increase in biliary cholesterol output and a shift in biliary cholesterol transport to higher-molecular-mass structures.