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<p>PROJECT GOALS: Billions of dollars are being spent every year in the United States to treat gastrointestinal ailments. Natural compounds produced by plants have the ability to combat gastrointestinal inflammation. Our previous study using natural compounds from rice callus culture have shown selective anti-cancer activity with very little or no effect on normal cells. Hence we propose to perform a comparative analysis of the ability of rice callus culture and blueberries and their bioactive fractions to identify potent anti-inflammatory compounds for gastrointestinal health. The use of a combination of plant natural products to control gastrointestinal inflammation and maintain gasterointestinal health has several advantages compared to the use of drugs that have significant side effects. Analysis of bioactive fractions from fruit extracts as well as callus cultures will lead to the identification of secondary metabolites promoting health benefits. Similar approach with rice callus culture which provide unlimited supply of metabolites is likely to identify potent gastrointestinal inflammation reducing compounds.</p><p>Objective 1: Evaluate anti-gastrointestinal inflammatory activity of blueberry extract and rice callus culture and their high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fractions on human intestinal cell lines. Objective 2: Isolate metabolites of the best performing HPLC fraction and test on human cell lines to identify a group of potent compounds with gastrointestinal anti-inflammatory activity.</p>
<p>PROJECT SUMMARY: The gastrointestinal tract (GI) is the most crucial system of our bodies because it serves as a means to provide all the nutrients our bodies need for efficient functioning. The GI tract also houses billions of symbiotic bacteria that are crucial in food digestion and elimination. This also means that it is subject to invading pathogens that most often are kept at bay by the stomach secretions and our robust immune system. However, recently we have begun to see a rise in a number of GI disorders that vary from minor indigestion to more severe diseases like Crohn's disease, Inflammatory bowel disease, pelvic inflammatory disease, celiac disease, gastric cancer, intestinal cancer and colon cancer and therefore a rise in human suffering. Our bodies respond to acute infections in the form of an inflammation. Acute innate inflammatory responses are beneficial because they allow us to develop an effective immune system. However, chronic inflammation is never good because the invading agents tax our immune sytem by affecting genes that regulate cell growth, cell proliferation, cell-cell communication and apoptosis. All these parameters, are a part of the underlying causes of the more serious diseases such as cancer. Here, we propose to determine the anti-inflammatory properties of fractionated blueberry extracts and rice callus suspension culture on human intestinal cell lines. Our previous studies demonstrated the anti-cancer activity of rice callus suspension culture and blueberries have been shown to contain phenolic compounds with anti-oxidant activity.</p>