L. plantarum prevents enteroinvasive Escherichia coli-induced tight junction proteins changes in intestinal epithelial cells.

Background: It is increasingly recognized that Lactobacillus plantarum (L. plantarum) has the ability to protect against Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC)-induced damage of the epithelial monolayer barrier function by preventing changes in host cell morphology, attaching/effacing (A/E) lesion formation, monolayer resistance, and macromolecular permeability. However, the cellular mechanism involved in this protective effect still remained to be clarified.

Methods: This study was to investigate the effect of L. plantarum on the changes of Caco-2 cells responding to Enteroinvasive Escherichia coli (EIEC), the permeability of cell monolayer and the transmissivity of dextran, and the distribution and expression of the tight junction (TJ) proteins, such as Claudin-1, Occludin, JAM-1 and ZO-1 were examined when infected with EIEC or adhesived of L. plantarum after infection by confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM), immunohistochemistry and Western blotting, the cytoskeleton protein F-actin were observed with FITC-phalloidin.

Results: This study demonstrated that the transepithelial electrical resistance (TER) step down and dextran integrated intensity (DII) step up with time after infected with EIEC, but after treating with L. plantarum, the changes of TER and DII were improved as compared with EIEC group. L. plantarum prevented the damage of expression and rearrangement of Claudin-1, Occludin, JAM-1 and ZO-1 proteins induced by EIEC, and could ameliorate the injury of cytoskeleton protein F-actin infected with EIEC.

Conclusion: L. plantarum exerted a protective effect against the damage to integrity of Caco-2 monolayer cells and the structure and distribution of TJ proteins by EIEC infection.