The gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota is the collection of microbes which reside in the GI tract and represents the largest source of non-self antigens in the human body. The GI tract functions as a ...major immunological organ as it must maintain tolerance to commensal and dietary antigens while remaining responsive to pathogenic stimuli. If this balance is disrupted, inappropriate inflammatory processes can result, leading to host cell damage and/or autoimmunity. Evidence suggests that the composition of the intestinal microbiota can influence susceptibility to chronic disease of the intestinal tract including ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, celiac disease and irritable bowel syndrome, as well as more systemic diseases such as obesity, type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Interestingly, a considerable shift in diet has coincided with increased incidence of many of these inflammatory diseases. It was originally believed that the composition of the intestinal microbiota was relatively stable from early childhood; however, recent evidence suggests that diet can cause dysbiosis, an alteration in the composition of the microbiota, which could lead to aberrant immune responses. The role of the microbiota and the potential for diet-induced dysbiosis in inflammatory conditions of the GI tract and systemic diseases will be discussed.
Intestinal alkaline phosphatase(IAP) plays an essential role in intestinal homeostasis and health through interactions with the resident microbiota, diet and the gut. IAP’s role in the intestine is ...to dephosphorylate toxic microbial ligands such as lipopolysaccharides, unmethylated cytosine-guanosine dinucleotides and flagellin as well as extracellular nucleotides such as uridine diphosphate. IAP’s ability to detoxify these ligands is essential in protecting the host from sepsis during acute inflammation and chronic inflammatory conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease. Also important in these complications is IAP’s ability to regulate the microbial ecosystem by forming a complex relationship between microbiota, diet and the intestinal mucosal surface. Evidence reveals that diet alters IAP expression and activity and this in turn can influence the gut microbiota and homeostasis. IAP’s ability to maintain a healthygastrointestinal tract has accelerated research on its potential use as a therapeutic agent against a multitude of diseases.Exogenous IAP has been shown to have beneficial effects when administered during ulcerative colitis,coronary bypass surgery and sepsis.There are currently a handful of human clinical trials underway investigating the effects of exogenous IAP during sepsis,rheumatoid arthritis and heart surgery.In light of these findings IAP has been marked as a novel agent to help treat a variety of other inflammatory and infectious diseases.The purpose of this review is to highlight the essential characteristics of IAP in protection and maintenance of intestinal homeostasis while addressing the intricate interplay between IAP,diet,microbiota and the intestinal epithelium.
Clinically, excessive ω-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) and inadequate ω-3 PUFA have been associated with enhanced risks for developing ulcerative colitis. In rodent models, ω-3 PUFAs have been ...shown to either attenuate or exacerbate colitis in different studies. We hypothesized that a high ω-6: ω-3 PUFA ratio would increase colitis susceptibility through the microbe-immunity nexus. To address this, we fed post-weaned mice diets rich in ω-6 PUFA (corn oil) and diets supplemented with ω-3 PUFA (corn oil+fish oil) for 5 weeks. We evaluated the intestinal microbiota, induced colitis with Citrobacter rodentium and followed disease progression. We found that ω-6 PUFA enriched the microbiota with Enterobacteriaceae, Segmented Filamentous Bacteria and Clostridia spp., all known to induce inflammation. During infection-induced colitis, ω-6 PUFA fed mice had exacerbated intestinal damage, immune cell infiltration, prostaglandin E2 expression and C. rodentium translocation across the intestinal mucosae. Addition of ω-3 PUFA on a high ω-6 PUFA diet, reversed inflammatory-inducing microbial blooms and enriched beneficial microbes like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria, reduced immune cell infiltration and impaired cytokine/chemokine induction during infection. While, ω-3 PUFA supplementation protected against severe colitis, these mice suffered greater mortality associated with sepsis-related serum factors such as LPS binding protein, IL-15 and TNF-α. These mice also demonstrated decreased expression of intestinal alkaline phosphatase and an inability to dephosphorylate LPS. Thus, the colonic microbiota is altered differentially through varying PUFA composition, conferring altered susceptibility to colitis. Overall, ω-6 PUFA enriches pro-inflammatory microbes and augments colitis; but prevents infection-induced systemic inflammation. In contrast, ω-3 PUFA supplementation reverses the effects of the ω-6 PUFA diet but impairs infection-induced responses resulting in sepsis. We conclude that as an anti-inflammatory agent, ω-3 PUFA supplementation during infection may prove detrimental when host inflammatory responses are critical for survival.
Dietary lipids modulate immunity, yet the means by which specific fatty acids affect infectious disease susceptibility remains unclear. Deciphering lipid-induced immunity is critical to understanding ...the balance required for protecting against pathogens while avoiding chronic inflammatory diseases. To understand how specific lipids alter susceptibility to enteric infection, we fed mice isocaloric, high-fat diets composed of corn oil (rich in n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids n-6 PUFAs), olive oil (rich in monounsaturated fatty acids), or milk fat (rich in saturated fatty acids) with or without fish oil (rich in n-3 PUFAs). After 5 weeks of dietary intervention, mice were challenged with Citrobacter rodentium, and pathological responses were assessed. Olive oil diets resulted in little colonic pathology associated with intestinal alkaline phosphatase, a mucosal defense factor that detoxifies lipopolysaccharide. In contrast, while both corn oil and milk fat diets resulted in inflammation-induced colonic damage, only milk fat induced compensatory protective responses, including short chain fatty acid production. Fish oil combined with milk fat, unlike unsaturated lipid diets, had a protective effect associated with intestinal alkaline phosphatase activity. Overall, these results reveal that dietary lipid type, independent of the total number of calories associated with the dietary lipid, influences the susceptibility to enteric damage and the benefits of fish oil during infection.
PGC-1α, a transcriptional coactivator, controls inflammation and mitochondrial gene expression in insulin-sensitive tissues following exercise intervention. However, attributing such effects to ...PGC-1α is counfounded by exercise-induced fluctuations in blood glucose, insulin or bodyweight in diabetic patients. The goal of this study was to investigate the role of PGC-1α on inflammation and mitochondrial protein expressions in aging db/db mice hearts, independent of changes in glycemic parameters. In 8-month-old db/db mice hearts with diabetes lasting over 22 weeks, short-term, moderate-intensity exercise upregulated PGC-1α without altering body weight or glycemic parameters. Nonetheless, such a regimen lowered both cardiac (macrophage infiltration, iNOS and TNFα) and systemic (circulating chemokines and cytokines) inflammation. Curiously, such an anti-inflammatory effect was also linked to attenuated expression of downstream transcription factors of PGC-1α such as NRF-1 and several respiratory genes. Such mismatch between PGC-1α and its downstream targets was associated with elevated mitochondrial membrane proteins like Tom70 but a concurrent reduction in oxidative phosphorylation protein expressions in exercised db/db hearts. As mitochondrial oxidative stress was predominant in these hearts, in support of our in vivo data, increasing concentrations of H2O2 dose-dependently increased PGC-1α expression while inhibiting expression of inflammatory genes and downstream transcription factors in H9c2 cardiomyocytes in vitro. We conclude that short-term exercise-induced oxidative stress may be key in attenuating cardiac inflammatory genes and impairing PGC-1α mediated gene transcription of downstream transcription factors in type 2 diabetic hearts at an advanced age.
Controversies have emerged regarding the beneficial v. detrimental effects of dietary n-6 PUFA. The alteration of the intestinal microbiota, a phenomenon termed dysbiosis, occurs during several ...chronic inflammatory diseases, but has not been well studied in an aged population. With present ‘Western’ diets predominantly composed of n-6 PUFA, we hypothesised that PUFA-rich diets cause intestinal dysbiosis in an aged population. C57BL/6 mice (aged 2 years) were fed a high-fat (40% energy), isoenergetic and isonitrogenous diet composed of rapeseed oil, maize oil or maize oil supplemented with fish oil. We examined ileal microbiota using fluorescence in situ hybridisation and stained tissues by immunofluorescence for the presence of immune cells and oxidative stress. We observed that feeding high-fat diets rich in n-6 PUFA promoted bacterial overgrowth but depleted microbes from the Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes phyla. This corresponded with increased body mass and infiltration of macrophages and neutrophils. Fish oil supplementation (rich in long-chain n-3 PUFA like DHA and EPA) restored the microbiota and inflammatory cell infiltration and promoted regulatory T-cell recruitment. However, fish oil supplementation was associated with increased oxidative stress, evident by the increased presence of 4-hydroxynonenal, a product of lipid peroxidation. These results suggest that an n-6 PUFA-rich diet can cause dysbiosis and intestinal inflammation in aged mice. However, while fish oil supplementation on an n-6 PUFA diet reverses dysbiosis, the combination of n-6 and n-3 PUFA, like DHA/EPA, leads to increased oxidative stress, which could exacerbate gastrointestinal disorders in the elderly.
PGC-1alpha, a transcriptional coactivator, controls inflammation and mitochondrial gene expression in insulin-sensitive tissues following exercise intervention. However, attributing such effects to ...PGC-1alpha is counfounded by exercise-induced fluctuations in blood glucose, insulin or bodyweight in diabetic patients. The goal of this study was to investigate the role of PGC-1alpha on inflammation and mitochondrial protein expressions in aging db/db mice hearts, independent of changes in glycemic parameters. In 8-month-old db/db mice hearts with diabetes lasting over 22 weeks, short-term, moderate-intensity exercise upregulated PGC-1alpha without altering body weight or glycemic parameters. Nonetheless, such a regimen lowered both cardiac (macrophage infiltration, iNOS and TNFalpha) and systemic (circulating chemokines and cytokines) inflammation. Curiously, such an anti-inflammatory effect was also linked to attenuated expression of downstream transcription factors of PGC-1alpha such as NRF-1 and several respiratory genes. Such mismatch between PGC-1alpha and its downstream targets was associated with elevated mitochondrial membrane proteins like Tom70 but a concurrent reduction in oxidative phosphorylation protein expressions in exercised db/db hearts. As mitochondrial oxidative stress was predominant in these hearts, in support of our in vivo data, increasing concentrations of H.sub.2 O.sub.2 dose-dependently increased PGC-1alpha expression while inhibiting expression of inflammatory genes and downstream transcription factors in H9c2 cardiomyocytes in vitro. We conclude that short-term exercise-induced oxidative stress may be key in attenuating cardiac inflammatory genes and impairing PGC-1alpha mediated gene transcription of downstream transcription factors in type 2 diabetic hearts at an advanced age.
Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) are a major concern in the developed world such as North America and Europe. It has been speculated that diet is an important risk factor in triggering IBD, as well ...as in inducing symptoms in IBD patients. However, to date no single nutrient has been confirmed empirically as either a contributing factor, or conversely, a preventative factor, that can protect against the disease. The main objective of this project was to determine the effects of dietary lipids on intestinal inflammation in vivo and in vitro before and during colitis. To achieve this, I studied high fat diets (HFD) : n-6 PUFA, MUFA and SFA and studied each of these HFD supplemented with n-3 PUFA. The mice, after 5 weeks of eating the lipid diets, were orally gavaged with an enteric pathogen Citrobacter rodentium commonly used to induce intestinal inflammation found during colitis. I determined the effects of different dietary oils on the intestinal immune responses by quantifying infiltration of immune cells and examining colonic, serum cytokine and chemokine responses. Since I had previously found that intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP) played a role in survival during infection induced colitis, I examined expression and activity of IAP in vivo and in vitro using 264.7 RAW (Mouse leukaemic monocyte macrophage) and Caco-2 (human epithelial colorectal adenocarcinoma) cells stimulated with various fatty acids and lipopolysaccharides (LPS). Overall my results showed that mice fed MUFA rich diets and inflicted with colitis were the most protected, whereas mice fed n-6 PUFA and SFA had exacerbated colitic responses compared to uninfected mice. Mice fed SFA diets and inflicted with colitis had increased compensating protective homeostatic responses such as: IL-10, IL-33, Reg3γ and T regulatory cells. The n-6 PUFA supplemented with n-3 PUFA diets resulted in a negative outcome on the host immune response in mice. In contrast, MUFA and SFA diets supplemented with n-3 PUFA had no effect on immune responses in mice. In conclusion, I recommend that people suffering from IBD should not supplement n-6 PUFA diets with n-3 PUFA. IBD patients should consider a diet rich in MUFA and/or SFA diets.
Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences (Okanagan)
Biology, Department of (Okanagan)
Graduate
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