There are several kinds of chicory that are cultived and used as food by northern Italian populations. They differ phenotypically for their different colors ranging from green to red and that is due to the different phytochemical composition of the cultivar.

The diversity of color is closely related to the composition of the polyphenol content, which may have a key role in the prevention of several chronic and degenerative diseases. The extracts of the polyphenols chicory were tested at increasing concentrations (5-10-15-20-50-100-200 mg/ml x 0-210 ' minute of incubation) on the in vitro model consisting of the Caco-2 cells line. Our findings show that the various concentrations of polyphenolic extract that we used didn't cause significant changes in trans-epithelial resistance (TEER), the monolayer culture. This our observation leads us to suppose that this polyphenolic extract hadn't interaction with our culture cells and that the antioxidant activity of bioactive compounds present in the polyphenolic extract as an exogenous component confined in the polysaccharides formed the glyco-calyx layer present in the brush border of the cells monolayer. In conclusion in order to confirm our hypothesis on the exogenous action of these antioxidant polyphenols extracts of Cichorium intybus, we are planning a future study (with in vitro model consisting of the Caco-2 cell line), in which it will be induce an oxidative stress, with AAPH, in order to simulate a pathological state (inflammatory) in order to observe physical / chemical changes, by TEER, caused by polyphenol extracts in Cichorium intybus.