Evaluation of probiotics on porcine intestinal epithelial cells

Abstract

The growth of human population increasingly demands food of animal origin, including pork meat. Intestinal diseases caused by Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli (E. coli) may lead to significant economic loss in pigs and often require antibiotic therapy. In the past, swine industry has largely relied on prophylactic and metaphylactic use of antibiotics to control gastrointestinal diseases. However, the misuse of antibiotics led to the emergence of antibiotic resistance and residues in the human food chain may appear, thus threatening human health. Consequently, it has become pivotal for the swine industry to seek for feed additives that can contribute to the health of the gastrointestinal tract. Probiotics are promising candidates for this purpose. Probiotic action is complex, the exact mechanism has been widely studied, but still needs to be elucidated. Among the beneficial effects exerted by probiotic bacteria are inhibition of pathogen adhesion, stimulation of heat shock proteins, alteration of cytokine production, antioxidant properties and enhancement of barrier function. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of multiple probiotic candidates (Enterococcus faecium, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Bacillus licheniformis and Bacillus subtilis) in porcine gastrointestinal infection models, in vitro. Two economically important swine pathogens E. coli and S. enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) or lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of S. Typhimurium or E. coli origin were used to model gastrointestinal infections