It is reported that the incidences of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and the chronic in？ammatory disease have reached 20 new cases per 100,000 person-years in western countries. These two diseases are no doubt increasing worldwide.

Serine, which is one of the major antioxidant in mammalian, could be used for the biosynthesis of glutathione. Previous studies showed that serine could improve homocysteine metabolism, promote optimal T cell proliferation and alleviate oxidative stress. These results suggested that serine may have beneficial effects on in？ammatory response.

Researchers in the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISA) investigated the e？ects of serine on in？ammatory response and barrier dysfunction in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced intestinal inflammation. In their experiment, all mice were randomly assigned into two groups and fed either a basal diet or a basal diet supplemented with 1% serine (wt/vol) for 14 days, and mice were intraperitoneally injected with 0.5 mg/kg LPS and the mice were executed for analysis after 2 hours.

The researchers found that pretreatment with serine prevented the LPS-induced in？ammatory response and oxidative stress, as well as maintained intestinal barrier function and permeability. Moreover, they also elucidated that serine may prevent LPS-induced intestinal damage by improving glutathione synthesis and AMPK activity in a p53-dependent manner.
"Our results suggested that serine could serve as a potential prophylactic agent to prevent the development of IBD, and our next step is to investigate whether long-term supplementation with serine has any side effects in animal model with IBD” said ZHOU Xihong, a researcher in ISA.

The study entitled “Serine prevents LPS-induced intestinal in？ammation and barrier damage via p53-dependent glutathione synthesis and AMPK activation” has been published in Volume 39, November 2017 of Journal of Functional Foods, details could be found at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756464617306345
 This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31702125).
 

Contact: ZHOU Xihong

E-mail: xhzhou@isa.ac.cn

Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences