Probiotics are known to modulate host physiology and inflammation. Given the critical role of autophagy, a key cellular homeostasis pathway, in intestinal inflammation and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), this study investigates whether native probiotic strains exert their anti-inflammatory and autophagy inducing properties by modulating autophagy signaling in an HT-29 cell model of inflammation. : We measured expression of autophagy-related genes by qPCR in the human intestinal epithelial cell line HT-29 after exposure to sonicated pathogens (Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium) and to native probiotic strains (cocktails of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium), administered both simulateously with inflammation induction and six hours after induction of inflammation. : Treatment with native probiotic strains significantly counteracted the pathogen-induced suppression of key autophagy genes (including pik3c3, atg3, atg5, atg7) in intestinal cells over 24- and 48-hour periods. The restorative effects were time and treatment-dependent, with certain probiotic combinations (e.g., treatment of sonicated pathogens and Bifidobacterium cocktail concurrently) showing superior efficacy in upregulating genes critical for both the initiation and degradation stages of autophagy. : This study demonstrates that native Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium strains significantly upregulate key autophagy-related genes, counteracting the suppressive effects of pathogens in an intestinal cell model. These findings suggest that modulating autophagic signaling represents a promising mechanism for probiotic-based mitigation of intestinal inflammation and a novel criterion for selecting therapeutic strains for IBD management.
Juriani et al. (Tue,) studied this question.