Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry 2015-01-01

Effects of phytochemicals on in vitro anti-inflammatory activity of Bifidobacterium adolescentis.

Kyuichi Kawabata, Yuri Kato, Taiken Sakano, Nobuyuki Baba, Kota Hagiwara, Akira Tamura, Seigo Baba, Midori Natsume, Hajime Ohigashi

Index: Biosci. Biotechnol. Biochem. 79 , 799-807, (2015)

Full Text: HTML

Abstract

Probiotics have been shown to improve the condition of not only the human gastrointestinal tract but also the entire body. We found that quercetin enhances the anti-inflammatory activity of Bifidobacterium adolescentis, which is abundant in human intestines. Here, we assessed whether certain phytochemicals could enhance the anti-inflammatory activity of B. adolescentis. Bifidobacteria were anaerobically cultured with phytochemicals for 3 h, and the anti-inflammatory activity of the supernatants was estimated by testing their ability to inhibit nitric oxide (NO) production by lipopolysaccharide-stimulated RAW264 macrophages. Of the 55 phytochemicals tested, phloretin, (+)-taxifolin, and (-)-epigallocatechin gallate as well as quercetin-3-O-glucoside and quercetin-4'-O-glucoside were similar to quercetin in promoting NO suppression by B. adolescentis. In addition, the phytochemicals excluding quercetin increased the concentrations of lactic and acetic acids in the co-culture supernatants. These results suggest that some phytochemicals may activate the anti-inflammatory function of B. adolescentis.