Preventive effects of bovine colostrum supplementation in TNBS-induced colitis in mice

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory disorder for which the current medical therapy is not completely effective. Bovine colostrum (BC) is a biological fluid rich in bioactive molecules that may have beneficial effects on several gastrointestinal disorders. The objectives of this study were to assess the preventive effects of BC supplementation in a mouse model of 2,4,6 trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS)-induced colitis using a multidisciplinary approach. Specifically, the following parameters were evaluated: (i) disease activity index (DAI), (ii) histological score, (iii) expression levels of TLR4, anti- and pro-inflammatory cytokines, and (iv) count of some bacterial species of the intestinal microbiota. Mice received a daily suspension of BC (BC group, n = 12) or saline solution (control, CN group, n = 12) for 21 days before the intrarectal inoculation with 1% of TNBS solution. BC was well tolerated and did not induce any histological damage or clinical symptoms. After TNBS treatment, BC group showed a reduction of body weight (BW) loss (P<0.01) and histological score (P<0.05) compared to CN. Moreover, the expression levels of TLR4 (P<0.05), IL-1β (P<0.001), IL-8 (P<0.001), and IL-10 (P<0.001) were lower in mice administered with BC, while the concentrations of TNF-α did not show any differences between groups. Finally, the supplementation with BC resulted in a differential response to TNBS treatment in the bacterial count. In CN group, E. coli and Enterococci increased (P<0.001), while Anaerobes (P<0.01), Lactobacilli, and Bifidobacteria (P<0.001) reduced. Conversely, no significant changes in bacterial load were found after the inoculation of TNBS in BC pre-treated mice. This study confirms that TNBS-induced colitis model in mice is useful for studying the mechanisms involved in IBD pathogenesis and shows that pre-treatment with BC reduces the intestinal damages and clinical signs of the colitis. Molecular mechanisms and intestinal microflora could be involved in the protective effect of colostrum.

Protective effects of fermented rice extract on ulcerative colitis induced by dextran sodium sulfate in mice

“…The microbiota normally inhibits NF-κB activation in the gut epithelial cells, which attribute the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties as well (Cerf-Bensussan & Gaboriau-Routhiau, 2010). Our UC model exhibited the colonic dysbiosis similar with other studies in IBD patients (Matsuoka & Kanai, 2015) and UC animal model (Filipescu et al, 2018;Shen et al, 2019) have shown anticolitis effects via anti-inflammatory (Liu, Su, Ong, Cheng, & Tsai, 2011) and antimicrobial activity (Jeong et al, 2015).…”

The Prophylactic Use of Bovine Colostrum in a Murine Model of TNBS-Induced Colitis

“…For these reasons, in recent years, many animal models and various chemical compounds have been employed to study its pathogenesis [8,26,28]. In our study, we designed the experimental procedures using the haptenic agent TNBS, which induces the disruption of the intestinal barrier and elicits a significant immune response that resembles IBD in regard to clinical symptoms and histopathology [25,26].…”

“…After TNBS treatment, mice were daily monitored for clinical symptoms (stool consistency, weight loss, and rectal bleeding) to attribute a 0-4 score (Table S1) as previously described [25,27].…”

“…A score ranging from 0 for normal to 3 for extended damage was given to each parameter. The final score could sum up to a total of 9 points [25].…”

“…Moreover, because IBD is a multifactorial immune disorder, a multidisciplinary approach is required to understand the effects and mechanisms of BC Animals 2020, 10, 492 3 of 15 supplementation. Filipescu et al [25], obtained encouraging results by using a 21-day pre-treatment of BC in mice with TNBS-induced colitis. However, these results need to be confirmed, and the effects of a short-term preventive treatment were not investigated.…”