The rate-limiting step in the transit of absorbed dietary fat across the enterocyte is the generation of the pre-chylomicron transport vesicle (PCTV) from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). This vesicle does not require coatomer-II (COPII) proteins for budding from the ER membrane and contains vesicle-associated membrane protein 7, found in intestinal ER, which is a unique intracellular location for this SNARE protein. We wished to identify the protein(s) responsible for budding this vesicle from ER membranes in the absence of the requirement for COPII proteins. We chromatographed rat intestinal cytosol on Sephacryl S-100 and found that PCTV budding activity appeared in the low molecular weight fractions. Additional chromatographic steps produced a single major and several minor bands on SDS-PAGE. By tandem mass spectroscopy, the bands contained both liver and intestinal fatty acid-binding proteins (L-and I-FABP) as well as four other proteins. Recombinant proteins for each of the six proteins identified were tested for PCTV budding activity; only L-FABP and I-FABP (23% the activity of L-FABP) were active. The vesicles generated by L-FABP were sealed, contained apolipoproteins B48 and AIV, were of the same size as PCTV on Sepharose CL-6B, and by electron microscopy, excluded calnexin and calreticulin but did not fuse with cis-Golgi nor did L-FABP generate COPII-dependent vesicles. Gene-disrupted L-FABP mouse cytosol had 60% the activity of wild type mouse cytosol. We conclude that L-FABP can select cargo for and bud PCTV from intestinal ER membranes.During intestinal lipolysis of a fat-containing meal, 2 mol of fatty acid (FA) 4 are produced for every mole of triacylglycerol (TAG) hydrolyzed. These FA and the remaining sn-2-monoacylglycerol are absorbed across the enterocyte apical plasma membrane. Absorption of the FA is thought to occur, at least in part, via specific membrane proteins. FATP4, which is highly expressed at the apical surface of the enterocyte, was shown to increase FA uptake following overexpression, and antisense oligonucleotide knockdown of FATP4 expression reduced FA uptake (1). FABPpm, which was first identified in jejunal microvillus membranes, may also be involved in FA uptake, as anti-FABPpm antibodies have been found to inhibit uptake (2-4). CD36 has been shown to be important for FA uptake into muscle and adipose tissues (5, 6) and may also play a role in intestinal FA transport (7). 5 CD36 is also important for intestinal TAG synthesis and subsequent TAG export from the intestine (8). Kinetic experiments have shown that in addition to protein-mediated transport, a diffusional mechanism for FA uptake by the enterocyte exists as well (9).Once inside the intestinal absorptive cell, the FA are largely bound to intracellular fatty acid-binding proteins (FABP), and the majority are rapidly converted into TAG (10) for subsequent export from the cell as the major component of intestinal lipoproteins, chylomicrons, and very low density lipoproteins.The absorptive enterocyte contains high levels...