Inflammation leads to porcine tight junction disruption of small intestinal epithelial cells, resulting in intestinal dysfunction. Herein, we established lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced in-vivo and in-vitro inflammatory models. The results revealed that LPS induced tight junction disruption in IPEC-J2 cells by downregulating tight-junction-related protein zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1), occludin and claudin-1 expression, while ginsenoside Rg1 rescued such inhibition and abrogated the upregulated expression of phosphorylation p38 MAPK. The p38 MAPK inhibitor (SB203580) showed a similar effect with Rg1 and attenuated the LPS-induced inhibition of ZO-1, occludin and claudin-1 expression, which is consistent with the reduced expression of NLRP3 inflammasome and IL-1β. Furthermore, the specific inhibitors of NLRP3 and IL-1β result in increased expression of tight-junction-related protein, demonstrating that p38 MAPK signaling was associated with Rg1 suppression of tight junction disruption. Besides, LPS treatment decreased the expression of ZO-1, occludin and claudin-1 through p38 MAPK signaling, and caused abnormal morphological changes in murine ileum. Meanwhile, Rg1 attenuated the decreased expression of ZO-1, occludin and claudin-1 and partially alleviated LPS-induced morphological changes in murine ileum. In summary, these findings characterized a novel mechanism by which Rg1 alleviates LPS-induced intestinal tight junction disruption by inhibiting the p38 MAPK-mediated NLRP3 inflammasome pathway.
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