Abstract
Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) constitute disturbances of gastrointestinal tract that cause irreversible changes in the structure and function of tissues. Ulcerative colitis (UC), the most frequent IBD in the population, is characterized by prominent inflammation of the human colon. Functional foods containing probiotic bacteria have been studied as adjuvants to the treatment or prevention of IBDs. The selected probiotic strain Lactococcus lactis NCDO 2118 (L. lactis NCDO 2118) exhibits immunomodulatory effects, with promising results in UC mouse model induced by dextran sodium sulfate (DSS). Additionally, cheese is a dairy food that presents high nutritional value, besides being a good delivery system that can be used to improve survival and enhance the therapeutic effects of probiotic bacteria in the host. Therefore, this work investigated the probiotic therapeutic effects of an experimental Minas Frescal cheese containing L. lactis NCDO 2118 in DSS-induced colitis in mice. During colitis induction, mice that consumed the probiotic cheese exhibited reduced in the severity of colitis, with attenuated weight loss, lower disease activity index, limited shortening of the colon length, and reduced histopathological score. Moreover, probiotic cheese administration increased gene expression of tight junctions’ proteins zo-1, zo-2, ocln, and cln-1 in the colon and increase IL-10 release in the spleen and lymph nodes. In this way, this work demonstrates that consumption of probiotic Minas Frescal cheese, containing L. lactis NCDO 2118, prevents the inflammatory process during DSS-induced colitis in mice, opening perspectives for the development of new probiotic functional foods for personalized nutrition in the context of IBD.
Highlights
Functional food products are defined as “natural or processed foods containing known or unknown biologically active compounds which provide a clinically proven and documented health benefit for the prevention, control or treatment of chronic diseases when in used in defined, effective and non-toxic amounts” (Rolim et al, 2020)
Our results demonstrated that the antioxidant potential (DPPH), ACE inhibitory activity (ACEI), α-amylase, and α-glucosidase on the probiotic cheese, containing L. lactis NCDO 2118, presented increased values and were significantly different (p < 0.05) compared with conventional cheese
It was necessary to investigate whether the Minas Frescal cheese manufactured with L. lactis NCDO 2118 altered the centesimal composition and bioactive compounds of the cheese, as well as whether Minas Frescal cheese was a good matrix to maintain the viability of this probiotic strain
Summary
Functional food products are defined as “natural or processed foods containing known or unknown biologically active compounds which provide a clinically proven and documented health benefit for the prevention, control or treatment of chronic diseases when in used in defined, effective and non-toxic amounts” (Rolim et al, 2020). Functional foods containing probiotic bacteria have been proposed for being safe for consumption and have the ability to modulate the responses in the host by cellular components or metabolites produced (Rabah et al, 2017) In this context, there is a wide demand for new functional foods, in particular, foods enriched by the addition of probiotics, driving the food’s industry to develop new products proven effective for health (Sperry et al, 2018). The Minas Frescal cheese is one of the most consumed cheese in Brazil and constitutes one important activity of the dairy industries, due to the high yield and absence of maturation period, which allows a quick return on investment and, lowers costs to the consumer (Sperry et al, 2018; Rocha et al, 2020) These features show that Minas Frescal cheese is a good candidate for manufacturing a new probiotic function dairy food
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