OATP8/1B3-mediated cotransport of bile acids and glutathione - An export pathway for organic anions from hepatocytes?

In cholestasis, the accumulation of organic anions in hepato-cytes is reduced by transporters (multidrug resistance-associated proteins and OST alpha-OST beta) able to extrude them across the basolateral membrane. Here we investigated whether organic anion-transporting polypeptides (OATPs) may contribute to this function. Xenopus laevis oocytes expressing human carboxylesterase-1 efficiently loaded cholic acid (CA) methyl ester, which was cleaved to CA and exported. Expression of OATP8/1B3 enhanced CA efflux, which was trans-activated by taurocholate but trans-inhibited by reduced (GSH) and oxidized (GSSG) glutathione. Moreover, taurocholate and estradiol 17 beta-D-glucuronide, but not bicarbonate and glutamate, cis-inhibited OATP8/1B3-mediated bile acid transport, whereas glutathione cis-stimulated this process, which involved the transport of glutathione itself with a stoichiometry of 2:1 (GSH/bile acid). No cis-activation by glutathione of OATP-C/1B1 was found. Using real time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR, the absolute abundance of OATP-A/1A2, OATP-C/1B1, and OATP8/1B3 mRNA in human liver biopsies was measured. In healthy liver, expression levels of OATP-C/1B1 were similar to 5-fold those of OATP8/1B3 and > 100-fold those of OATP-A/1A2. This situation was not substantially modified in several cholestatic liver diseases studied here. In conclusion, although both OATP-C/1B1 and OATP8/1B3 are highly expressed, and able to transport bile acids, their mechanisms of action are different. OATP-C/1B1 may be involved in uptake processes, whereas OATP8/1B3 may mediate the extrusion of organic anions by symporting with glutathione as a normal route of exporting metabolites produced by hepatocytes or preventing their intracellular accumulation when their vectorial traffic toward the bile is impaired.