Combining strains of lactic acid bacteria may reduce their toxin and heavy metal removal efficiency from aqueous solution.

Aims: The primary objective of this study was to compare the removal of cadmium, lead, aflatoxin B1 and microcystin-LR from aqueous solution by Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, L. rhamnosus LC705, Propionibacterium freudenreichii shermanii JS and Bifidobacterium breve Bbi99/E8, separately and in combination.

Methods And Results: The removal of toxins and heavy metals was assessed in batch experiments.

Arsenic removal by native and chemically modified lactic acid bacteria.

Arsenic in drinking water is a major health problem globally. Simple, novel methods are needed for its removal from water, especially in rural areas. For this purpose, the potential of different microbes in toxin and heavy metal removal from water has gained interest.

Rapid removal of lead and cadmium from water by specific lactic acid bacteria.

Cadmium and lead are highly toxic metals. People are exposed to them primarily through food and water. Available conventional methods (precipitation, flocculation, ion exchange, and membrane filtration) for removal of these metals from water at low concentrations are claimed to be expensive and inefficient.

Probiotic bacteria as potential detoxification tools: assessing their heavy metal binding isotherms.

Dietary exposure to heavy metals may have detrimental effects on human and animal health, even at low concentrations. Specific probiotic bacteria may have properties that enable them to bind toxins from food and water. We assessed the interaction of probiotic bacteria with cadmium and lead in vitro as an initial screening step to identify strains for heavy metal decontamination in food and intestinal models.

Elevated serum anti-I2 and anti-OmpW antibody levels in children with IBD.

Background: Bacteria are implicated as important factors in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The aim of this study was to seek evidence of possible bacterial targets of the immune response related to IBD in children.

Methods: Seventy-eight children referred to the Department of Paediatrics at Tampere University Hospital on suspicion of IBD were included in the study.

Small-bowel mucosal transglutaminase 2-specific IgA deposits in coeliac disease without villous atrophy: a prospective and randomized clinical study.

Objective: In coeliac disease, autoantibodies directed against transglutaminase 2 are produced in small-bowel mucosa, and they have been found to be deposited extracellularly. The aim of this study was to investigate whether such mucosal IgA deposits are important in the diagnostic work-up of early-stage coeliac disease without small-bowel mucosal villous atrophy.

Material And Methods: Forty-one adults suspected of coeliac disease owing to increased density of mucosal gamma(delta)+ intraepithelial lymphocytes but normal villous morphology were randomized to gluten challenge or a gluten-free diet for 6 months.

In vivo targeting of intestinal and extraintestinal transglutaminase 2 by coeliac autoantibodies.

Background: IgA class serum autoantibodies against type 2 (tissue) transglutaminase (TG2) bind to both intestinal and extraintestinal normal tissue sections in vitro, eliciting endomysial, reticulin, and jejunal antibody reactions. It is not known whether similar binding also occurs in coeliac patients in vivo, and may thereby contribute to disease manifestations.

Aims: To investigate intestinal and extraintestinal coeliac tissues for the presence of in vivo bound TG2 specific IgA and its relation to small intestinal mucosal atrophy.

Inhibition of matrix metalloproteinase-14 in osteosarcoma cells by clodronate.

Background: Bisphosphonates reduce the bone metastasis formation and angiogenesis but the exact molecular mechanisms involved are unclear. Progelatinase A (proMMP-2; 78 KDa) is activated up during the tumor spread and metastasis by a cell surface-associated matrix metalloproteinase (membrane-type matrix metalloproteinase [MT1-MMP] or MMP-14).

Material And Methods: We evaluated the effects of a bisphosphonate (clodronate) on MT1-MMP mRNA expression and protein production, catalytic activity and proteolytic activation of proMMP-2 by cultured human MG-63 osteosarcoma cells.

Design, synthesis, and evaluation of gluten peptide analogs as selective inhibitors of human tissue transglutaminase.

Recent studies have implicated a crucial role for tissue transglutaminase (TG2) in the pathogenesis of Celiac Sprue, a disorder of the small intestine triggered in genetically susceptible individuals by dietary exposure to gluten. Proteolytically stable peptide inhibitors of human TG2 were designed containing acivicin or alternatively 6-diazo-5-oxo-norleucine (DON) as warheads. In biochemical and cell-based assays, the best of these inhibitors, Ac-PQP-(DON)-LPF-NH(2), was considerably more potent and selective than other TG2 inhibitors reported to date.

Missing endomysial and reticulin binding of coeliac antibodies in transglutaminase 2 knockout tissues.

Background: Autoantibodies against transglutaminase 2 (TG2) are thought to be responsible for the endomysial (EMA), reticulin (ARA), and jejunal antibody (JEA) tissue binding of serum samples from coeliac patients but the exclusive role of TG2 in these staining patterns has not yet been established.

Aims: To evaluate whether antigens other than TG2 contribute to EMA/ARA/JEA reactions.

Patients: Serum samples from 61 EMA/ARA/JEA positive untreated patients with coeliac disease, 40 dermatitis herpetiformis patients, and 34 EMA/ARA/JEA negative non-coeliac controls were tested.

Blisters in the small intestinal mucosa of coeliac patients contain T cells positive for cyclooxygenase 2.

Background And Aims: Coeliac disease is characterised by atrophy of the villi and hyperplasia of the crypts in the mucosa of the small intestine. It is caused by an environmental trigger, cereal gluten, which induces infiltration of the mucosa by inflammatory cells. We hypothesised that these inflammatory cells express cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2), an enzyme that contributes to the synthesis of pro and anti-inflammatory prostaglandins and is known to be expressed at sites of inflammation in the stomach and colon.

Differentially expressed CC3/TIP30 and rab11 along in vivo and in vitro intestinal epithelial cell crypt-villus axis.

We have previously shown that transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) is involved in the fibroblast-induced organization and differentiation of transformed phenotypically crypt-like T84 intestinal epithelial cells into absorptive enterocyte-like cells, when cultured within a three-dimensional collagen gel. We have used differential display polymerase chain reaction to find genes that are either up- or downregulated by TGF-beta in the T84 cells cultured in three-dimensional collagen gel and then studied how these in vitro differentially expressed genes are expressed in vivo in the small intestinal crypt-villus axis. We found that the TGF-beta1-treated T84 cells, like the villus tip enterocytes, expressed increased levels of CC3/TIP30 when compared to the undifferentiated cells.

Tissue transglutaminase is the target in both rodent and primate tissues for celiac disease-specific autoantibodies.

Background: Endomysial antibodies have recently been shown to react with tissue transglutaminase. This study was undertaken to investigate whether the tissue distribution of transglutaminase is also compatible with reticulin, jejunal, and fibroblast autoantibody binding patterns.

Methods: Sera from patients with and without celiac disease, monoclonal tissue transglutaminase antibodies, and sera from mice parenterally immunized against commercially available tissue transglutaminase, transglutaminase complexed with gliadin, or gliadin were used in indirect immunofluorescence and double-staining studies using both rodent and primate tissues as substrates.

Identification of novel transcription factor-like gene from human intestinal cells.

Intestinal crypt epithelial T84 cells form luminal structures and differentiate to intestinal enterocyte-like cells in response to IMR-90 fibroblast-secreted transforming growth factor-beta when grown within three-dimensional collagen gel. In search of TGF-beta regulated genes involved in this differentiation process, we isolated a TGF-beta downregulated cDNA, human homologue of rat apoptosis antagonising transcription factor that codes for a 560-amino-acid protein. Human AATF-mRNA was expressed at high levels in human brain, heart, thymus, kidney, and placenta while in skeletal muscle and colon the expression was lower.

The role of transforming growth factor-beta on retarded osteoblastic differentiation in vitro.

Various matrix growth factors play important roles in the development and growth of cartilage and bone. Among them transforming growth factor-beta superfamily and especially bone morphogenetic proteins are known to be important factors, since they induce bone and cartilage formation in ectopic sites in vivo. We have previously shown that the human osteosarcoma cell line Saos-2 expresses molecules that in vivo induce new bone formation with asymmetric bone maturation.

Serum immunoglobulin A from patients with celiac disease inhibits human T84 intestinal crypt epithelial cell differentiation.

Background & Aims: Celiac disease is characterized by disturbed jejunal crypt-villus axis biology with immunoglobulin (Ig) A deposits underlining the epithelium. The aim of this study was to test whether celiac disease serum IgA (reticulin/endomysial autoantibodies) interferes with the mesenchymal-epithelial cell cross-talk.

Methods: Differentiation of T84 epithelial cells was induced with IMR-90 fibroblasts or transforming growth factor beta in three-dimensional collagen gel cultures.

Tissue transglutaminase autoantibody enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in detecting celiac disease.

Background & Aims: Tissue transglutaminase has been reported to be the target for endomysial antibodies in celiac disease. We sought to establish whether immunoglobulin (Ig) A class tissue transglutaminase autoantibodies can be considered specific for celiac disease.

Methods: Serum samples from 136 patients with untreated celiac disease (diagnosed according to the criteria of the European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition) and 207 disease controls were studied.

Autoantibodies in celiac disease: importance of fibroblasts.

Background: Serum reticulin and endomysium autoantibodies are highly celiac disease-specific, and the autoantigens have been shown to be derived from human fibroblasts. Among human tissues, the umbilical cord also expresses these antigens. This study was conducted to compare different autoantibody tests and especially to elucidate whether human umbilical cord is a suitable substrate in tests and whether the cord jelly-derived fibroblasts express the antigens.

Measurement of total and local bone morphogenetic protein concentration in bone tumours.

Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) has been shown to be one of the significant factors in the prognosis of bone tumours. In normal development BMP induces new bone formation and later takes part in fracture healing, but its function in malignant tumours is not known. In this study the concentration of bone morphogenetic protein was measured in primary bone tumours by two methods.

Fibroblasts and transforming growth factor beta induce organization and differentiation of T84 human epithelial cells.

Background & Aims: The gut epithelium in the crypt-villus axis represents a continuous developmental system in which the role of fibroblast-epithelial interactions is obvious. The aim of this study was to establish an in vitro method whereby fibroblast-guided differentiation of crypt-like gut epithelial cells can be studied.

Methods: Intestinal epithelial cells (T84 and HT-29) were cultured within type I collagen gel together were fibroblasts without cell-to-cell contact.