Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 7, 2018; 24(41): 4652-4662
Published online Nov 7, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i41.4652
Mucosal adhesion and anti-inflammatory effects of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG in the human colonic mucosa: A proof-of-concept study
Cristiano Pagnini, Vito Domenico Corleto, Michela Martorelli, Claudio Lanini, Giancarlo D’Ambra, Emilio Di Giulio, Gianfranco Delle Fave
Cristiano Pagnini, Vito Domenico Corleto, Michela Martorelli, Claudio Lanini, Giancarlo D’Ambra, Emilio Di Giulio, Gianfranco Delle Fave, Department of Digestive and Liver Disease, School of Medicine and Psychology, S. Andrea Hospital, Sapienza University, Rome 00189, Italy
Author contributions: Pagnini C designed the study, performed experiments, interpreted the data and wrote the paper; Corleto VD collected samples and edited the paper; Martorelli M and Lanini C performed the majority of the experiments; D’Ambra G and Di Giulio E collected samples and coordinated the research; and Delle Fave G designed the study, coordinated the research and edited the paper.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the institutional review board of S. Andrea Hospital.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Cristiano Pagnini, MD, PhD, Department of Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy, S. Giovanni Addolorata Hospital, Via dell’ Amba Aradam 9, 00184 Rome, Italy. cpagnini@hsangiovanni.roma.it
Telephone: +39-6-77051 Fax: +39-6-77053253
Received: July 19, 2018
Peer-review started: July 19, 2018
First decision: August 25, 2018
Revised: September 28, 2018
Accepted: October 16, 2018
Article in press: October 16, 2018
Published online: November 7, 2018
Processing time: 112 Days and 10.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Since probiotic utilization is often driven by unproven health claims, we intended to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of a safe and well-characterized probiotic bacterial species, the Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG), in ulcerative colitis (UC) patients, through a preclinical proof-of-concept study. We demonstrated for the first time effective mucosal colonization and the anti-inflammatory effect of LGG, both ex vivo and in vivo, by quantifying bacterial DNA and cytokine RNA expression directly at the mucosal site using genomic techniques. Further translational and clinical studies would confirm the utility and optimize the therapeutic administration of LGG in UC patients.