Effect of specific Bifidobacteria strain on the inflammatory bowel disease mice

Abstract:

In the present paper we investigated the effects of specific bifidobacteria strain as supplementation on acute inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) induced by dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) and the possible mechanism was also discussed. Mice were divided into three groups as control, DSS, and experiment (DSS+Bf) group. The mice in DSS group were fed with 4% DSS (W/V) solution for 7 days to induce colitis, and the mice in DSS+Bf group, were then given bifidobacteria by oral gavage for next 4 weeks. Boththe colonic lengths and the magnitude of colonic inflammation were measured for three groups. Furter, expression of IL-10 mRNA in Peyer’s patch (PP) cells and secretion of IL-10 in intestinal mucosa were also assessed by reverse transcription- polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry, respectively. It was found that the average colonic length observed in the DSS+Bf group was shorter than those in the control group but longer than those in the DSS group. Both macro-and micro-disease scorring showed that the values of the DSS+Bf goup significantly decreased compared with the DSS group, while both the expression of IL-10 mRNA in PP cells and the IL-10 positive cells in intestinal mucosa of the samples in the DSS+Bf group were also significantly higher than those of DSS group. It is obvious that the bifidobacteria strain involved in the present studies could prevent the DSS-induced murine colitis and improve the expression levels of anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 in intestinal mucosa.