-The liver expresses high levels of two proteins with high affinity for long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs): liver fatty acid binding protein (L-FABP) and sterol carrier protein-2 (SCP-2). Real-time confocal microscopy of cultured primary hepatocytes from gene-ablated (L-FABP, SCP-2/ SCP-x, and L-FABP/SCP-2/SCP-x null) mice showed that the loss of L-FABP reduced cellular uptake of 12-N-methyl-(7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazo)-aminostearic acid (a fluorescent-saturated LCFA analog) by ϳ50%. Importantly, nuclear targeting of the LCFA was enhanced when L-FABP was upregulated (SCP-2/SCP-x null) but was significantly reduced when L-FABP was ablated (L-FABP null), thus impacting LCFA nuclear targeting. These effects were not associated with a net decrease in expression of key membrane proteins involved in LCFA or glucose transport. Since hepatic LCFA uptake and metabolism are closely linked to glucose uptake, the effect of glucose on L-FABP-mediated LCFA uptake and nuclear targeting was examined. Increasing concentrations of glucose decreased cellular LCFA uptake and even more extensively decreased LCFA nuclear targeting. Loss of L-FABP exacerbated the decrease in LCFA nuclear targeting, while loss of SCP-2 reduced the glucose effect, resulting in enhanced LCFA nuclear targeting compared with control. Simply, ablation of L-FABP decreases LCFA uptake and even more extensively decreases its nuclear targeting. liver fatty acid binding protein; sterol carrier protein-2; glucose HEPATIC LONG-CHAIN FATTY ACIDS (LCFAs) and glucose are metabolically linked through the intracellular LCFA pool arising from exogenous (dietary) uptake and de novo synthesis from glucose. High blood levels of LCFAs, as well as glucose, are significant risk factors in the pathogenesis of diabetes and associated cardiovascular disease (CVD) (87). The liver plays a major role in maintaining blood LCFA, as well as glucose, homeostasis (64). Exogenous LCFAs are translocated into the hepatocyte via bifunctional membrane-bound fatty acid transport proteins (FATPs) with acyl-coenzyme A (CoA) synthase activity (FATP2, FATP4, and FATP5) (reviewed in Ref. 78). The liver contains high levels of two soluble proteins, liver fatty acid binding protein (L-FABP) and sterol carrier protein-2 (SCP-2), with high affinity for LCFA, as well as LCFA-CoA (reviewed in Refs. 19,20,52,59,82).The impact of L-FABP and SCP-2 on LCFA uptake has been examined in transformed cell lines and in L-FABP genetargeted mice. Overexpression of L-FABP in L-cell fibroblasts, cells with a very low level of endogenous FABP or SCP-2, enhanced cellular LCFA uptake (7, 49). While L-FABP antisense treatment of HepG2 hepatoma cells decreased cellular LCFA uptake, such hepatoma cells normally express 3-to 10-fold less L-FABP and SCP-2 than the liver (34, 83). This issue was resolved with L-FABP null mice, which exhibit decreased hepatic LCFA uptake in vivo (40, 51). SCP-2 overexpression in L-cell fibroblasts also enhanced LCFA uptake (8,48). Conversely, nothing is known about the effect of SCP-2 gene ablati...