Our country's scientists have revealed for the first time the transport mechanism of key bile acid transport proteins.

The team led by Jiang Daohua from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences/Beijing National Research Center for Condensed Matter Physics, in collaboration with the team led by Lei Xiaoguang from Peking University and other research institutions, combined research forces to reconstruct the high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy structure of the bile acid transport protein OST/ using their previous experience and techniques. This study for the first time revealed the novel assembly mode and transport mechanism of OST/. OST/, as a key bile acid transport protein, is responsible for pumping reabsorbed bile acids from intestinal cells into the portal vein blood back to the liver in the enterohepatic circulation of bile acids, and can transport bile acids and cholesterol substances bidirectionally. The related findings have been published online in the international academic journal "Nature".