jmbReview Lipoteichoic Acid Isolated from Weissella cibaria Increases Cytokine Production in Human Monocyte-Like THP-1 Cells and Mouse

Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is a cell wall component of grampositive bacteria. The structure of LTA is different in every species [29]. However, most LTA is composed of long phosphate chains and glycolipids. The function of LTA is similar to that of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which is a cell wall component of gram-negative bacteria. LTA and LPS increase secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF, IL-1, and IL-6 [19, 25, 26], which cause inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, meningeal inflammation, and septic shock [6]. However, LTAs from different bacterial species and strains have different immune regulatory effects. For example, LTA from Bacillus subtilis, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus fermentem, and Staphylococcus aureus increase the production of TNF-α in RAW 264.7 cells or splenocytes [19, 24]. On the other hand, LTA from Lactobacillus plantarum (pLTA) does not induce TNF-α production. The outstanding function of LTA isolated from L. plantarum is antiinflammatory effects. It has been reported that LTA from L. plantarum inhibits the inflammatory cytokine production induced by LPS and LTA from S. aureus (aLTA) [12, 13]. LTA is recognized by Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) [19, 30] and activates nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) and mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK), including p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases (p38), c-Jun N-terminal kinases (JNK), and extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK), which lead to the activation of transcription factors that are required for the secretion of inflammatory cytokines [4, 16, 32]. Most lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are well-known probiotics. LAB prevent the adherence and replication of pathogens through an antimicrobial system and also effect the suppression of tumor growth [17, 21]. LAB change the gut Received: January 21, 2016 Revised: March 21, 2016 Accepted: March 23, 2016