2.
Aim of the thesis
In the intestines of healthy people there are twenty mucin which are overexpressed or little expressed. Alterations of this state are created by different stimuli, including the simple passage of the alimentary bolus. Taking into account this background, our study and its testing is carried out in the laboratory are concentrated on the analysis of four mucin to demonstrate their variation in gene expression in relation to diversification of the nutritional compounds.
The four mucin in question have been selected for several reasons: the MUC 2, one major mucin
secretion; MUC 3 the most studied of adhering membrane mucin, MUC 13 and MUC 17 Have
been studied recently due to the recent discoveries. By using a co-culture of cancer cells of the intestine, Caco-2 and HT-29 in 9: 1, our study has initially focused on the interaction of probiotic bacteria selected according to their ability to adhere to the gastrointestinal tract in a way to check if their adherence influenced positively or negatively on the secretion of mucin.
In the second part of the study, the analysis has moved its focus to the interaction of three
polyphenols extracted from apple, tea and coffee on the same cell line. This phase of the research
was based on checking the effect of antioxidant compounds on mucin alteration. In order for the
final analysis to have a real and more detailed situation, we wanted to verify the different gene expression of this mucin induced by hydrolyzed milk, as predigested-milk.
