Impact of food additive Titanium Dioxide E171 on human health

The University of Sydney & University of New South Wales have recently published their work on the “Impact of the Food Additive Titanium Dioxide (E171) on Gut Microbiota-Host Interaction“.

They have investigated the impact that Titanium Dioxide (E171) – mostly found in processed foods such as mayonnaise or candies – has on gut microbiota of mice. The study shows that the food additive E171 can induce gut microbiome changes associated with the development of diseases, including colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel disease.

Visualizing bacteria and biofilms has been complicated with traditional microscopy due to low-contrast and high transparency of these samples. Thanks to the 3D Cell Explorer it has been possible to visualize E. coli and E. faecalis to reveal the clustering effect of TiO₂ on both E. coli and E. faecalis in vitro in this study. Please see Figure 1 for reference.

Figure 1. TiO₂ triggers biofilm formation by commensal bacteria. (A,B) The clustering effect of TiO₂ on (A) E. coli and (B) E. faecalis in vitro was visualized by Nanolive imaging in the presence of 0, 0.5, 1, or 50 μg/ml TiO₂ after 24 h incubation. Black represents the refractive index of TiO₂ and green represents bacteria.

Please read the full publication in frontiers in Nutrition here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2019.00057/full#supplementary-material.

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