ABSTRACT
Marranzino et al. 2012; Salva et al. 2012; Villena et al. 2011). However, the chemical structure of immunogenics (immunoregulatory factors) derived from probiotics and the mechanism through which they exhibit activity have not been adequately explained, and this is an issue that needs to be resolved in order to create novel functional foods and feeds. Following ingestion, immunogenics is believed to stimulate the immunocompetent cells in the intestine, thus taking part in intestinal immunoregulation that starts with the induction of cytokine production (Finamore et al. 2012; Plantinga et al. 2011). However, the background of immunogenics is intestinal mucosa immunology, and although this is seen by some as the “new horizon” of immunology, it is an area in which many questions remain unanswered (Takahashi et al. 2009). Thus, the details of the intestinal immunoreaction to foodstuff components remain unclear.
