Intestinal Barrier and Permeability in Health, Obesity and NAFLD

作者：Piero Portincasa, Leonilde Bonfrate, Mohamad Khalil, Maria De Angelis, Francesco Maria Calabrese, Mauro D’Amato, David Q.‐H. Wang, Agostino Di Ciaula · 发表于：Biomedicines · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.3390/biomedicines10010083 · 被引用次数：210 · 研究领域：Liver Disease Diagnosis and Treatment、Diet and metabolism studies、Gut microbiota and health

The largest surface of the human body exposed to the external environment is the gut. At this level, the intestinal barrier includes luminal microbes, the mucin layer, gastrointestinal motility and secretion, enterocytes, immune cells, gut vascular barrier, and liver barrier. A healthy intestinal barrier is characterized by the selective permeability of nutrients, metabolites, water, and bacterial products, and processes are governed by cellular, neural, immune, and hormonal factors. Disrupted gut permeability (leaky gut syndrome) can represent a predisposing or aggravating condition in obesity and the metabolically associated liver steatosis (nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, NAFLD). In what follows, we describe the morphological-functional features of the intestinal barrier, the role of major modifiers of the intestinal barrier, and discuss the recent evidence pointing to the key role of intestinal permeability in obesity/NAFLD.