Exogenous sphingomyelinase causes impaired intestinal epithelial barrier function

Figure 1 Exogenous sphingomyelinase increases permeability of Caco-2 epithelial monolayers. A: Caco-2 monolayers were incubated with different concentrations of exogenous SMase. ^bP < 0.01 between control and treated samples; B: Transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER) was measured across the cell monolayers 4 h after treatment of the monolayers with exogenous SMase. The data were compared with TEER before treatment and are expressed as % of untreated, ^cP < 0.05, ^dP < 0.01; C: Epithelial apoptosis was monitored 6 h after incubation with 0.25 U/mL SMase by measurement of caspase-3/7-activity with colorimetric assays. As a positive control, deoxycholic acid (DCA) was used for 1 h.