enhances the gut barrier integrity the interaction between GAPDH and the mouse tight junction protein JAM-2.

Commensal intestinal microbiota interacts with gut epithelial cells in the host by binding to specific host receptors. Several pattern recognition receptors on the gut that sense conserved microbial-associated molecular patterns have been reported; however, many of the gut receptor molecules involved in bacterial binding have not yet been identified. In this study, commensal intestinal bacteria interacting with mouse gut surface proteins were screened from fecal bacterial samples, to identify novel receptors on the epithelial cells in the mouse gut. Among the screened intestinal lactic acid bacteria, the frequently isolated MG was used for the purification of gut receptor proteins. An approximately 30 kDa protein was purified using affinity resin coupled surface layer proteins isolated from MG. The purified gut protein was identified as a member of the tight junction protein family, junctional adhesion molecule-2 (JAM-2). As expected, the tight junctions of Caco-2 cells damaged by HO were repaired by incubation with MG. RNA sequence analysis showed significant upregulation of the expression of genes for tight junctions, anti-inflammatory effects, transcriptional regulation, and apoptosis in Caco-2 cells, following MG treatment. In MG, the surface layer 40 kDa protein was purified with gut protein-coupled affinity resin and identified as the moonlighting protein glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH). These results suggest that MG promotes the barrier function integrity in Caco-2 cells GAPDH-JAM-2 binding. Here, we propose a promising approach to identify novel gut receptor molecules based on commensal bacterial interactions and understand host-bacterial communication in a mouse model.