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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Lactobacillus casei BL23 regulates Treg and Th17 T-cell populations and reduces DMH-associated colorectal cancer

  • Original Article—Alimentary Tract
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This article was retracted on 08 September 2020

This article has been updated

Abstract

Background

Chronic intestinal inflammation alters host physiology and could lead to colorectal cancer (CRC). We have previously reported beneficial effects of the probiotic strain of Lactobacillus casei BL23 in different murine models of intestinal inflammation. In addition, there is an emerging interest on the potential beneficial effects of probiotics to treat CRC. We thus explored whether L. casei BL23 displays protective effects on CRC.

Methods

Mice were subcutaneously injected with 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH) weekly during 10 weeks and orally administered with L. casei BL23 in the drinking water until the 10th week. Multiple plaque lesions in the large intestine were observed macroscopically and counted and intestinal tissues were also histologically analyzed. Finally, T-cell populations and cytokine production were evaluated after co-incubation of L. casei BL23 with spleen cells from non-treated mice to determine the immuno-modulatory effects of this bacterium.

Results

Our results show that oral treatment with this probiotic bacterium modulates host immune responses and significantly protect mice against DMH-induced CRC. This protection may be associated with the modulation of regulatory T-cells towards a Th17-biased immune response accompanied by the expression of regulatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-17, IL-10 and TGF-β), as demonstrated in L. casei BL23-treated splenocytes, but also with the colonic expression of IL-22 observed in vivo on L. casei BL23-treated mice; suggesting the induction of a fine-tune Th17-biased response.

Conclusions

Altogether our results reveal the high potential of L. casei BL23 to treat CRC and opens new frontiers for the study of immunomodulatory functions of probiotics.

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Acknowledgments

Marion Lenoir was a recipient of an ABIES Grant. Diego Muñoz-Provencio was the recipient of a fellowship from the “Fundación Alfonso Martín Escudero, Spain”. Daniel Lozano-Ojalvo acknowledges his FPU Grant (MECD) and financial support through AGL2014-59771R project. This work was partially funded by ECOS-Sud Program (Action No. A11S02).

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Author notes

  1. Daniel Lozano-Ojalvo

    Present address: Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias de la Alimentación (CIAL, CSIC-UAM), Madrid, Spain

Authors and Affiliations

  1. INRA, Commensal and Probiotics-Host Interactions Laboratory, UMR 1319 Micalis, 78350, Jouy-en-Josas, France

    Marion Lenoir, Diego Muñoz-Provencio, Florian Chain, Philippe Langella & Luis G. Bermúdez-Humarán

  2. AgroParisTech, UMR1319 Micalis, 78350, Jouy-en-Josas, France

    Marion Lenoir, Diego Muñoz-Provencio, Florian Chain, Philippe Langella & Luis G. Bermúdez-Humarán

  3. Centro de Referencia para Lactobacilos (CERELA-CONICET), T4000ILC, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina

    Silvina del Carmen, Alejandra de Moreno de LeBlanc & Jean Guy LeBlanc

  4. INRA, UR496 Unité d’Immuno-Allergie Alimentaire, Jouy-en-Josas, France

    Naima G. Cortes-Perez & Daniel Lozano-Ojalvo

  5. CEA, IBiTecS, Service de Pharmacologie et d’Immunoanalyse, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Naima G. Cortes-Perez & Daniel Lozano-Ojalvo

Authors
  1. Marion Lenoir
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  2. Silvina del Carmen
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jean Guy LeBlanc or Luis G. Bermúdez-Humarán.

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Marion Lenoir, Silvina del Carmen and Alejandra de Moreno de LeBlanc have contributed equally to this work.

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Lenoir, M., del Carmen, S., Cortes-Perez, N.G. et al. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Lactobacillus casei BL23 regulates Treg and Th17 T-cell populations and reduces DMH-associated colorectal cancer. J Gastroenterol 51, 862–873 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00535-015-1158-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00535-015-1158-9

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