Publication details
Effect of a high-gluten diet on the intestinal barrier in an animal model
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Celiac disease is an immune-mediated enteropathy triggered by the ingestion of gluten that can develop in genetically susceptible individuals. The prevalence of CD is increasing overtime and the only possible treatment is a strict lifelong gluten-free diet. Although the risk genotype is present in approximately 28% of individuals in the Czech population, the outbreak occurs in only a small percentage of them. In addition to genetic background, environmental factors such as intestinal dysbiosis, viral diseases, and the increasing consumption of wheat also play a role in the development of CD. To study the influence of a high-gluten diet and to compare the differences between wheat and oats, a mouse model was used to monitor pro-inflammatory markers, disturbances in intestinal permeability, and morphology (villi height, crypt depth), as well as overall organ morphology. Hypothesis: An increased amount of gluten prolamins affects the intestinal micromorphology and inflammatory response of the intestine, and this effect is more pronounced with wheat prolamins (gliadins) than with oat prolamins (avenins). For the preparation of experimental diets, 700 g of avenins and gliadins were isolated from oat and wheat flour. In our study, 48 BALB/c mice were used as a model for a healthy organism. The mice were divided into four groups (control, gluten, gliadins, and avenins group) and fed different experimental diets for five weeks. The aim was to monitor the potential effect of various high-gluten diets on intestinal micromorphology and the expression of pro-inflammatory markers such as IL-2, TNF-?, or IL-15. As expected, the results did not show that a high-gluten diet had a significant negative impact on the health of the mice. The diet primarily affected intestinal micromorphology, as the group on the gliadin and avenin diet showed an increased villus/crypt ratio, indicating an attempt by the organism to increase the surface area for absorption. No other organs besides the small intestine were affected by the diet. In the analysis of selected interleukins, no statistically significant differences were observed between the groups. In conclusion, a high-gluten diet, as expected, does not cause significant harm to the organism; however, it did affect the micromorphology of the small intestine. Surprisingly, the effect of gliadins was very similar to that of avenins. |