The fundamental discovery could enable scientists to develop new treatments for chronic bowel diseases and better understand human health
The fundamental discovery could enable scientists to develop new treatments for chronic bowel diseases and better understand human health - New understanding about how the gut balances between 'good' and 'bad' bacteria could provide new clues for managing chronic gut diseases Immune cells called group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3s) play an essential role in establishing tolerance to symbiotic microbes that dwell in the human gastrointestinal tract, according to a new study. The discovery published today (Wednesday 7 September) in Nature , illuminates an important aspect of gut health and mucosal immunity—one that may hold the key to better treatments for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), colon cancer and other chronic disorders. "As part of this study, we define a novel pathway that drives immune tolerance to microbiota in the gastrointestinal tract," said senior author Dr. Gregory F. Sonnenberg, associate professor of microbiology and immunology in medicine and head of basic research in the Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, and a member of the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Weill Cornell Medicine. "This is a fundamental advance in our understanding of mucosal immunity and may hold the key to understanding what goes wrong when the immune system begins to inappropriately attack microbiota in diseases such as IBD." - Living symbiotically - but how?. Scientists have long known that trillions of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes dwell symbiotically in the intestines of mammals.
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