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. 2022 Mar 28;28(12):1204–1219. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i12.1204

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©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.

This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/

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Microbiota and intestinal barrier integrity. The intestinal barrier plays an essential role in maintaining host homeostasis. It is mainly composed of the mucus layer, the epithelial layer, and the underlying lamina propria. Intestinal epithelial cells are tightly attached to each other by junctional complexes. Tight junctions (TJs) are composed of several proteins, including occludin, claudins, zonula occludens (ZOs), and junctional adhesion molecules (JAMs), which interact with each other, as well as with the cytoskeleton. The adherence junction is composed of the nectin-afadin system and the E-cadherin-catenin system. Intestinal epithelial barrier integrity prevents the translocation of bacteria and luminal antigens to the mucosa, thus averting their interaction with the host immune system and the development of low-grade mucosal inflammation in the gut wall. TJ: Tight junctions; AJ: Adherence junction; JAM: Junctional adhesion molecules.