A novel immunostimulating aspect of Lactobacillus gasseri: induction of "Gasserokine" as chemoattractants for macrophages.

The chemotactic activity of the culture supernatants from 14 strains of Lactobacillus acidophilus and L. gasseri was examined for murine macrophages. Significant macrophage chemotactic activity was observed in three strains of L. acidophilus and all strains of L. gasseri. The highest activity was observed in the supernatant (1131-sup) from 24-h cultures of L. gasseri JCM1131T. The chemotactic factor from 1131-sup, designated as "Gasserokine", was purified by the C18 reverse phase and ion-exchange chromatography. The purity of Gasserokine was checked by HPLC with the reverse-phase mode. The chemotactic activity of Gasserokine was also observed for human monocytes. The macrophage chemotaxis induced by L. gasseri JCM1131T culture supernatants was discovered to be a new biological function exerted by probiotic lactic acid bacteria. Therefore, the activity is expected to be used for one of the functional parameters in the immunomodulating properties of probiotic lactic acid bacteria.