These results suggest that L. paracasei KW3110 may have a preventive effect against degrative retinal diseases. - GreenMedInfo Summary

Age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa are leading causes of blindness and share a pathological feature, which is photoreceptor degeneration. To date, the lack of a potential treatment to prevent such diseases has raised great concern. Photoreceptor degeneration can be accelerated by excessive light exposure via an inflammatory response; therefore, anti-inflammatory agents would be candidates to prevent the progress of photoreceptor degeneration. We previously reported that a lactic acid bacterium,KW3110 (KW3110), activated macrophages suppressing inflammation in mice and humans. Recently, we also showed that intake ofKW3110 could mitigate visual display terminal (VDT) load-induced ocular disorders in humans. However, the biological mechanism ofKW3110 to retain visual function remains unclear. In this study, we found thatKW3110 activated M2 macrophages inducing anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-10 (IL-10) production in vitro using bone marrow-derived M2 macrophages. We also show that IL-10 gene expression was significantly increased in the intestinal immune tissues 6 h after oral administration ofKW3110 in vivo. Furthermore, we demonstrated that intake ofKW3110 suppressed inflammation and photoreceptor degeneration in a murine model of light-induced retinopathy. These results suggest thatKW3110 may have a preventive effect against degrative retinal diseases.