Does probiotic intervention induce the serum global lipid profile change?

The new global metabolic profiling techniques, like lipidomics as a branch of metabolomics, have made it possible to measure large numbers of different metabolites, and are currently being applied to increase our understanding of the health and disease continuum.

A Finland research group investigated the effect of a three weeks intervention of a probiotic LGG intervention on serum global lipidomics profiles in healthy adults. This will be published on 28 May 2008, in the World Journal of Gastroenterology. The result showed that there were decreases in the levels of lysophosphatidylcholines (LysoGPCho), sphingomyelins (SM) and several glycerophosphatidylcholines (GPCho), and increases in triacylglycerols (TAG) in the probiotic LGG group. These changes may contribute, for example, to the metabolic events behind the beneficial effects of LGG on gut barrier function seen in previous studies.

This study, done in collaboration with research groups of Associate Professor Riitta Korpela and Professor Matej Orešič, was the first to characterise the effect of probiotics on global lipidomics profiles. There were indications that probiotic LGG intervention may lead to changes in global lipidomics profiles reflected in decreased LysoGPCho and SM, mainly decreased GPCho and mainly elevated TAG. In addition, among the inflammatory variables, IL-6 was moderately associated by changes in global lipidomics profiles, while there was only a weak association between the lipidomics profiles and the two other inflammatory markers, TNF-αand CRP.

The new analytical capacity of lipidomics as a branch of metabolomics can increase our understanding of lipid biology, improve the characterisation of global lipid profiles and result in the identification of previously unknown changes in lipid metabolism. Probiotics have been mostly studied in the prevention and treatment of different gastrointestinal diseases and allergy, but the action mechanisms of probiotics are poorly understood. Metabolomics may provide powerful tools for identifying new biomarkers behind the clinical effects of probiotic intervention trials and for establishing relationships between molecular profiles and other known data from the same individual.

Reference: Kekkonen RA, Sysi-Aho M, Seppänen-Laakso T, JulkunenI, Vapaatalo H, Orešič M, Korpela R. Effect of probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG intervention on global serum lipidomics profiles in healthy adults. World J Gastroenterol2008; 14(20): 3188-3194 : http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/14/3188.asp

Correspondence to: Riitta Korpela, PhD, Institute of Biomedicine, Pharmacology, PO Box 63, University of Helsinki, Helsinki 00014, Finland. riitta.korpela@valio.fi
Telephone: +358-10-3813026 Fax: +358-10-3813019

World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection and provides a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day of every month. WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the name of China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.