Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Research International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodres Probiotic Prato cheese attenuates cigarette smoke-induced injuries in mice Felipe M. Vasconcelos a , Hugo L.A. Silva b , Sara M.V. Poso a , Marina V. Barroso a , Manuella Lanzetti a , Ramon S. Rocha b,c , Juliana S. Graça d , Erick A. Esmerino b , Monica Q. Freitas b , Marcia C. Silva c , Renata S.L. Raices c , Daniel Granato f , Tatiana C. Pimentel e , Anderson S. Sant'Ana d , Adriano G. Cruz c, ⁎ , Samuel S. Valença a, ⁎ a Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil b Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Faculdade de Veterinária, 24230-340 Niterói, Brazil c Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio de Janeiro (IFRJ), Departamento de Alimentos, 20270-021 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil d Department of Food Science, Faculty of Food Engineering, University of Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil e Instituto Federal do Paraná, Paranavaí, Paraná, Brazil f Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa (UEPG), Departamento de Engenharia de Alimentos, 84030-900 Ponta Grossa, Brazil ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Probiotic Prato cheese Cigarette smoke-induced injury ABSTRACT The efcacy of probiotic Prato cheese against the infammatory and oxidative damage in mice organs induced by cigarette smoke exposure was investigated. Forty C57BL/6 male mice were assigned to four groups: (CS) exposed to cigarette smoke and fed regular chow; (CS + C) exposed to cigarette smoke and fed daily conventional cheese ad libitum; (CS + PC) exposed to cigarette smoke and fed daily probiotic (Lactobacillus casei-01) cheese ad libitum; and a control group (C) exposed to ambient smoke-free air and fed regular chow. Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), blood, gut and liver homogenates were used for biochemical assays. The (CS + PC) group exhibited fewer BAL leukocytes, reactive oxygen species (ROS), and BAL and gut lipid peroxidation than the (CS) and (CS + C) groups, which had fndings similar to the (C) group. Probiotic cheese consumption did not change the red blood cell count, but lower lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels in plasma, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and peroxynitrite expression were observed compared to the (CS) and (CS + C) groups, with fndings similar to the (C) group. These results suggest that probiotic Prato cheese consumption reduced oxidative stress in the lungs, gut, and liver. 1. Introduction Probiotics are an important category in the functional food sector (Champagne, Gomes da Cruz, & Daga, 2018). Cheese is a suitable food matrix to deliver probiotics (Thomas, 2016), and its repeated ingestion has been associated with several health benefts (Lollo et al., 2012). Prato cheese is a typical Brazilian ripened cheese which was introduced in Brazil in the 20's of the last century, in the southern region of Minas Gerais, through Danish immigrants being manufactured using similar principles of Danish and Duthc cheese making, such as Danbo and Edam (Cruz, Buriti, de Souza, Faria, & Saad, 2009). It has been de- monstrated an adequate food matrix for probiotic survival (Silva et al., 2018; Silva et al., 2018) with positive results in clinical studies using mice models (Martins et al., 2018). Cigarette smoke (CS) is the primary risk factor for developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is a leading cause of death in the Western world and increasing in prevalence in developing countries (Taylor, 2010). CS is a complex mix of carcino- gens, toxins, reactive solids, and oxidants, which when introduced into the pulmonary environment activates immune infammatory pathways (Smith & Hansch, 2000) that induce lung infammation due to an im- balance between oxidant and antioxidant mechanisms (De De Moura et al., 2012). Although probiotics have been proven to exert many therapeutic efects towards consumers´ health (de Almada, Nunes de Almada, Martinez, & Sant'Ana, 2015), their efect against these damages due to CS is not well documented. This study aimed to investigate the efcacy of repeated consumption of probiotic Prato cheese, a Brazilian ripened cheese, against the infammatory and oxidative condition induced by cigarette smoke in a mouse model. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2019.06.001 Received 21 April 2019; Received in revised form 2 June 2019; Accepted 3 June 2019 ⁎ Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: adriano.cruz@ifrj.edu.br (A.G. Cruz), samuelv@icb.ufrj.br (S.S. Valença). Food Research International 123 (2019) 697–703 Available online 04 June 2019 0963-9969/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T