BACKGROUND Understanding the interaction of graphene-related materials (GRM) with human cells is a key to the assessment of their potential risks for human health. There is a knowledge gap regarding the potential uptake of GRM by human intestinal cells after unintended ingestion. Therefore the aim of our study was to investigate the interaction of label-free graphene oxide (GO) with the intesti...

The Caco-2 assay has achieved wide popularity among pharmaceutical companies in the past two decades as an in vitro method for estimation of in vivo oral bioavailability of pharmaceutical compounds during preclinical characterization. Despite its popularity, this assay suffers from a severe underprediction of the transport of drugs which are absorbed paracellularly, that is, which pass through ...

The intestinal permeability of low-molecular-weight hyaluronan (LMW-HA) was investigated by using cultured monolayers of Caco-2 cells. The amount of LMW-HA that permeated the Caco-2 monolayers was measured by a carbazole assay. The permeability of LMW-HA increased inversely with the molecular size and was dose-dependent. The transport was observed to be energy-independent, and was correlated wi...

The specific mechanisms controlling intestinal cell differentiation remain largely undefined. The retinoblastoma (Rb) proteins (pRb, p130, and p107) appear crucial to the terminal differentiation process of certain cells through their association and repression of E2F transcription factors. We have examined the expression of pRb-related proteins p130 and p107 as well as the regulation of E2F du...

Consumption of fruits and vegetables is associated with a reduced risk of developing a wide range of cancers including colon cancer. In this study, we evaluated the effects of two compounds present in fruits and vegetables, ursolic acid, a triterpenoid, and luteolin, a flavonoid, on DNA protection and DNA repair in Caco-2 cells using the comet assay. Ursolic acid and luteolin showed a protectiv...

BACKGROUND Physiological stressors may alter susceptibility of the host intestinal epithelium to infection by enteric pathogens. In the current study, cytotoxic effect, adhesion and invasion of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) to Caco-2 cells exposed to thermal stress (41 degrees C, 1 h) was investigated. Probiotic bacteria have been shown to reduce interaction of pathog...

A major route of exposure to hydrophobic organic contaminants (HOCs), such as benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), is ingestion. Matrix-bound HOCs may become bioavailable after mobilization by the gastrointestinal fluids followed by sorption to the intestinal epithelium. The purpose of this research was to measure the bioavailability of [14C]-BaP bound to pristine soils or field-contaminated sediment using an...

Norovirus (NV), a member of the family Caliciviridae, is one of the important causative agents of acute gastroenteritis. In the present study, we found that virus-like particles (VLPs) derived from genogroup II (GII) NV were bound to cell surface heparan sulfate proteoglycan. Interestingly, the VLPs derived from GII were more than ten times likelier to bind to cells than were those derived from...