Intestinal caveolin-1 is important for dietary fatty acid absorption.

How dietary fatty acids are absorbed into the enterocyte and transported to the ER is not established. We tested the possibility that caveolin-1 containing lipid rafts and endocytic vesicles were involved. Apical brush border membranes took up 15% of albumin bound (3)H-oleate whereas brush border membranes from caveolin-1 KO mice took up only 1%.