C. butyricum lipoteichoic acid inhibits the inflammatory response and apoptosis in HT-29 cells induced by S. aureus lipoteichoic acid.

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is one of microbe-associated molecular pattern (MAMP) molecules of gram-positive bacteria. In this study, we demonstrated that Clostridium butyricum LTA (bLTA) significantly inhibited the inflammatory response and apoptosis induced by Staphylococcus aureus LTA (aLTA) in HT-29 cells. aLTA stimulated the inflammatory responses by activating a strong signal transduction cascade through NF-κB and ERK, but bLTA did not activate the signaling pathway. bLTA pretreatment inhibited the activation of the NF-κB and ERK signaling pathway induced by aLTA. The expression and release of cytokines such as IL-8 and TNF-α were also suppressed by bLTA pretreatment. aLTA treatment induced apoptosis in HT-29 cells, but bLTA did not affect the viability of the cells. Further study indicated that bLTA inhibited apoptosis in HT-29 cells induced by aLTA. These results suggest that bLTA may act as an aLTA antagonist and that an antagonistic bLTA may be a useful agent for suppressing the pro-inflammatory activities of gram-positive pathogenic bacteria.