Lipopolysaccharide exhibits synergistic enhancement of butyrate-induced and retinoic acid-mediated alkaline phosphatase activity on small intestinal epithelial cell line, IEC-6

Although both lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and sodium butyrate are major bacterial products and bioactive chemicals with multiple functions on mucosal cells in the gut, their interaction effects on epithelial cells are not well understood. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether LPS modulates butyrate-induced and retinoic acid-mediated alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity of IEC-6 cells - a rat nontransformed small intestinal epithelial cell line. When cells reached confluency, various combinations of sodium butyrate, retinoic acid and LPS were added to the cultures. Cells were then harvested for the measurement of ALP activities. Sodium butyrate, but not retinoic acid or LPS alone, enhanced ALP activity. When LPS was additionally used with butyrate or retinoic acid, synergistic induction of ALP activities was demonstrated. No additive effect for ALP activity was observed when muramyl peptides or N-formylmethionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine was used with these acids. The present study clearly demonstrated that the specific combination of butyrate and LPS synergistically increased ALP activity, an epithelial differentiation-associated marker, of an intestinal epithelial cell line.