Ingestion of Indigestible Oligo- and Poly-saccharides and Intestinal Immune Function Kana HIRANO1,2, Shin KUBOTA1 , Tsukasa MATSUDA1 1Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, 2 College of Human Life and Environment, Kinjo Gakuin University Indigestible oligo- and polysaccharides have emerged to have physiological functions in regulating intestinal microflora to provide beneficial effects on the host’s life and health. However, simple but essential questions on how intestinal microflora directly affects the host’s life and health, as well as on what the effective factors provided by the microbes are, remain to be answered. Cellular receptors specific for some indigestible oligoand polysaccharides have been identified; moreover, using mouse models such as germ-free mice, physiological functions of several species and strains of intestinal symbiotic microbes have been proven to be a result of interactions through unknown mechanisms with the intestinal immune system. In several recent studies, wellknown metabolites produced by some strains of anaerobic intestinal bacteria have been suggested to play crucial roles in the interaction between intestinal microbes and the immune system; this is through the upregulation of transcription factor genes involved in T cell differentiation and the induction of cytokines that promote B cell differentiation, including immunoglobulin class switching. In this article, we review the recent progress in understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms for the functional interaction of dietary indigestible oligo- and polysaccharides with the intestinal immune system.
Key words: indigestible oligosaccharide, pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), short chain fatty acid, regulatory T cell, secretory IgA |
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