Figure 3.

Positive and negative effects of elevated hepatic TGR5 signaling. Within the liver, TGR5 activation by TGR5-specific agonists and/or bile acids leads to beneficial metabolic outcomes, including improved glucose tolerance [24] and decreased hepatic inflammation [15,20]. However, TGR5 signaling in the biliary tract and gallbladder results in increased bile flow, gallbladder filling, and gallstone formation [22,24,28,29,31,82,83], as well as increased cholangiocyte proliferation and hepatic cystogenesis [84].