Ain 93g

Seven-week old male ICR mice were purchased from Central Lab Animal (Seoul, Korea). The animal breeding environment was adjusted to a dark cycle of 12 h light/12 h dark at a temperature of 23 ± 1 °C and a humidity of 40–60%. The mice were acclimatized in the laboratory room for one week and then randomly divided into four groups (n = 8/group). The control group was provided with a normal chow diet AIN-93G purchased from Doo Yeol Biotech (Seoul, Korea). The treatment groups (SZ, Lp, SZ + Lp) were fed the same normal chow diet mixed with Na₂SeO₃ (1.2 µg/g Se⁴⁺) and ZnSO₄∙7H₂O (5 µg/g Zn²⁺), 10¹² CFU/mouse Lactobacillus plantarum SeZi, and 10¹² CFU/mouse SeZn-enriched L. plantarum SeZi, respectively. The daily administration was conducted for 4 weeks. The protocols and facilities utilized in this animal experiment were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Seoul National University (SNU-180403-2-2).