Fatty Acid-binding Protein in Small Intestine. Identification, Isolation, and Evidence for Its Role in Cellular Fatty Acid Transport

A soluble fatty acid-binding protein (FABP), mol wt approximately 12,000 is present in intestinal mucosa and other tissues that utilize fatty acids, including liver, myocardium, adipose, and kidney. This protein binds long chain fatty acids both in vivo and in vitro.FABP was isolated from rat intestine by gel filtration and isoelectric focusing. It showed a reaction of complete immunochemical identity with proteins in the 12,000 mol wt fatty acid-binding fractions of liver, myocardium, and adipose tissue supernates. (The presence of immunochemically nonidentical 12,000 mol wt FABP in these tissues is not excluded.) By quantitative radial immunodiffusion, supernatant FABP concentration in mucosa from proximal and middle thirds of jejuno-ileum significantly exceeded that in distal third, duodenum, and liver, expressed as micrograms per milligram soluble protein, micrograms per gram DNA, and micrograms per gram tissue. FABP concentration in villi was approximately three times greater than in crypts. Small quantities of FABP were present in washed nuclei-cell membrane, mitochondrial and microsomal fractions. However, the amount of FABP solubilized per milligram membrane protein was similar for all particulate fractions, and total membrane-associated FABP was only about 16% of supernatant FABP. Intestinal FABP concentration was significantly greater in animals maintained on high fat diets than on low fat; saturated and unsaturated fat diets did not differ greatly in this regard.The preponderance of FABP in villi from proximal and middle intestine, its ability to bind fatty acids in vivo as well as in vitro, and its response to changes in dietary fat intake support the concept that this protein participates in cellular fatty acid transport during fat absorption. Identical or closely related 12,000 mol wt proteins may serve similar functions in other tissues.