Heat treatment of galangin and kaempferol inhibits their benefits to improve barrier function in rat intestinal epithelial cells.

Flavonols are bioactive substances in plant foods. In this study, two flavonols galangin and kaempferol were heated at 100°C for 30 min prior to assessing their effects on barrier function of rat intestinal epithelial (IEC-6) cells. Both heated and unheated flavonols (2.5-20 µmol/L dosages) were nontoxic to the cells up to 48 h post-treatment, and could promote cell viability values to 102.2-141.2% of control. By treatment with 5 µmol/L flavonols for 24 and 48 h, the treated cells time-dependently showed better improved physical and biological barrier functions than the control cells without any flavonol treatment, including higher transepithelial electrical resistance and antibacterial effect but reduced paracellular permeability and bacterial translocation. The results from real-time PCR and western-blot assays indicated that the cells treated with heated and unheated flavonols of 5 µmol/L dosage had up-regulated mRNA (1.13-1.81 folds) and protein (1.15-5.11 folds) expression for zonula occluden-1, occludin, and claudin-1 that are vital to the tight junctions of the cells. Moreover, protein expression of RhoA and ROCK were down-regulated into 0.41-0.98 and 0.40-0.92 folds, respectively, demonstrating a Rho inactivation that led to enhanced cell barrier integrity via the RhoA/ROCK pathway. Overall, galangin was more active than kaempferol to perform three biofunctions like improving cell barrier function, up-regulating tight junctions protein expression, and down-regulating RhoA/ROCK expression. Moreover, the heated flavonols were less effective than the unheated counterparts to perform these biofunctions. It is concluded that this heat treatment of galangin and kaempferol could inhibit their benefits to improve barrier function of IEC-6 cells.