MUCO-IMMUN · MUCOBIOME-MEDIATED IMMUNE PATHWAYS IN INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASES

MUCOBIOME-MEDIATED IMMUNE PATHWAYS IN INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASES

Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) – including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis – are chronic disorders affecting 2.5 to 3 million people in Europe and are steadily increasing in the worldwide population. IBD are characterized by persistent ulcerations in the gastrointestinal tract, thereby drastically affecting the patient’s quality of life, and increasing mortality owing to associated complications such as cancer. For these reasons, IBD patients require intensive medical intervention, rendering this group of disorders a major health care issue. Despite IBD being a set of inflammatory diseases, the underlying host immune pathways are poorly understood, making it difficult to reliably treat and cure patients. The etiology of IBD is multi-factorial with both genetic and environmental components. Although polymorphisms in over 100 genes have been implicated in the pathogenesis of IBD, they seem to be poor predictors of disease development. Therefore, models of IBD require the combination of genetic and environmental risks. The gut microbiome and the dietary habits have been proposed as major environmental contributors of the disease. Although causal relationships are beginning to emerge, how the diet and the gut microbiome work together to induce gut inflammation is still poorly understood. Within the gut microbiome, here, we define mucobiomes as the microbial communities enzymatically geared to digest the host intestinal mucus layer, whose mucolytic activities are regulated by dietary fibres. The research hypothesis for the proposed MSCA application is that the mucobiomes catalyse important disease-promoting immune pathways in IBD. Objectives of this MSCA were to (1) highlight the role of mucobiomes in the fiber-deprivation-driven colitis in a genetically susceptible model of colitis (Il10-/- mice), and (2) characterize the mucobiome-associated immune pathways in this colitis model.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union