Establishment of an in vitro Peyer's patch cell culture system correlative to in vivo study using intestine and screening of lactic acid bacteria enhancing intestinal immunity.

Some lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are known as representative of probiotics. To screen LAB effective to enhance intestinal immunity, in the present study, we developed an accurate and convenient in vitro evaluation system using Peyer's patch cells (PP-cells) isolated from the mice intestine. We observed that the amount of immunoglobulin A (IgA) produced by PP-cells co-cultured with LAB was well correlative to that in PP-cells, intestine and feces isolated from live mice after oral administration of LAB [correlation coefficient (r)=0.888, 0.883, and 0.920, respectively]. In addition, using this in vitro system, we suggest that the IgA level of PP-cells co-culturing with plant-derived LAB might be more enhanced than with animal-derived LAB.