Ulcerative colitis is chronic inflammatory bowel disease characterized by intestinal inflammation and barrier dysfunction. Probiotics and postbiotics have been proposed as dietary interventions for intestinal health; however, their comparative preventive effects remain unclear. In this study, we evaluated the preventive effects of probiotic and postbiotic forms of Lacticaseibacillus paracasei HY2782 in a dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis mouse model. Male C57BL/6 mice were orally administered live or heat-killed HY2782 prior to DSS exposure. Disease activity index, colon length, histopathological damage, inflammatory cytokine expression, and intestinal barrier-related gene expression were assessed, and gut microbiota composition was analyzed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Both probiotic and postbiotic forms of HY2782 significantly alleviated DSS-induced colitis, as evidenced by reduced disease activity, preserved colon length, improved histological features, and suppressed expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines. In addition, HY2782 treatment restored the expression of tight junction-related genes in colonic tissue. Gut microbiota analysis revealed limited but specific compositional changes following HY2782 administration, with no marked differences between live and heat-killed forms. These findings demonstrate that both probiotic and postbiotic forms of HY2782 exert preventive effects against DSS-induced colitis with no statistically significant differences between the two preparations. This suggests that HY2782 has significant potential as a versatile functional ingredient in both live and inactivated forms for the prevention of inflammatory bowel diseases, although further studies are needed to fully elucidate their distinct mechanistic roles.
Lee et al. (Wed,) studied this question.