Probiotic bacteria cell walls stimulate the activity of the intestinal epithelial cells and macrophages functionality

LEMME DUMIT, JOSE; POLTI, MARTA; PERDIGON, GABRIELA; MALDONADO GALDEANO, CAROLINA

Beneficial Microbes

Wageningen Academic Publishers

Año: 2017

1876-2883

The effect of oral administration of probiotic bacteria cell walls (PBCWs) in the stimulation of immune system in healthy BALB/c mice was evaluated. We focused our investigation on macrophages and mainly on intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) as key cells necessary to coordinate an adequate mucosal immune response. We demonstrated that the probiotic bacteria and their cell walls have been able to stimulate the IECs exhibiting an important activation and cytokine releases. We also found that supplementation of PBCWs exert macrophages activation from peritoneum and spleen, indicating that the PBCWs oral administration was able to improve the macrophages functionality. In addition, we demonstrated that the PBCWs increased IgA-producing cells in the gut lamina propria in a similar way to probiotic bacteria. The PBCWs supplementation did not have effect on the population of goblet cells in the small intestine epithelium. These results indicate that the probiotic bacteria as well as, their cell walls exert an important immunoregulatory effect on the IECs without alteration of the homeostatic environment but with stimulation of the innate immune cells, mainly in distant sites to the gut as spleen and peritoneal macrophages. The finding of new simple structures that are considered safe and, capable to stimulate the immune system could be applied in the future like new oral adjuvant