Figure 6
Colonization with Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) prevents colitis in adult conventionally raised mice. Mice were treated as described in Figure 2. Eight-week-old mice were treated with 3% dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) in drinking water for 4 days. Paraffin-embedded colon sections were stained with H&E for light microscopic assessment of epithelial damage and inflammation (a). The inflammation/injury scores are shown (b). The length of colon was measured (c). mRNA was isolated from the colonic tissues for real-time PCR analysis of indicated cytokine mRNA expression levels. The average of cytokine mRNA expression levels in the water group of non-colonized mice was set as 100%, and the mRNA expression level of each mouse was compared with this average (d). Intestinal permeability was determined by an in vivo permeability assay on the fourth day of DSS treatment. FITC-dextran level in sera is shown (e). *P<0.01 compared with the water-treated mice in the non-colonization group. #P<0.05 compared with the non-colonized mice with DSS treatment. Feces were collected from LGG-colonized mice before DSS treatment and cultured on deMan, Rogosa and Sharpe agar to determine the number of Lactobacillus colonies. The number of fecal Lactobacillus colony was plotted against the inflammation and injury score for each mouse. The lines illustrate the best-fit linear regressions with the correlation coefficient and significance as indicated (f).
