Effect of Capsaicin on the Tight Junctional Permeability of the Human Intestinal Cells

In arid and semi-arid lands, people eats many kinds of spices. Capsaicin is one effect active component of spices. Previously we demonstrated that capsaicin induced tight junction (TJ) opening in human intestinal Caco-2 cells. We showed that the increase of TJ permeability was involved in actin polymerization. However the underlying mechanisms are unclear. The major aims of this study were to determine the effect of capsaicin on intestinal epithelial TJ permeability and to elucidate the mechanisms involved in this process using an established in vitro intestinal epithelial model system consisting of Caco-2 intestinal epithelial monolayer. Treatment Caco-2 cells with capsaicin increased TJ permeability as measured by transepithelial electrical residence (TER). However, TJ was recovered soon. Hence, in this study, we tested our hypothesis that influence on Caco-2 cells by the capsaicin is different depending on time moment. Our data suggest that capsaicin induced different influence depending on the time moment.