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Getting better with a little help from our 'micro' friends
Date:5/28/2008

the PSA molecule.

In particular, Mazmanian and his colleagues found that PSA induced particular immune-system cells called CD4+ T cells to produce interleukin-10 (IL-10), a molecule that has previously been shown to suppress inflammation--and offer protection from inflammatory bowel disease. "Thus, bacteria help reprogram our own immune system to promote health," he says.

"The most immediate and obvious implication is that PSA may potentially be developed as a natural therapeutic for inflammatory bowel disease," says Mazmanian.

Inflammatory bowel disease, a constellation of illnesses that cause inflammation in the intestines, including ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, is estimated to affect one million Americans. The rates of inflammatory bowel diseases have skyrocketed in recent years; for example, the incidence of Crohn's disease, a condition that causes debilitating pain, diarrhea, and other gastrointestinal symptoms, has increased by 400 percent over the past 20 years.

The current research, along with other work by Mazmanian and June L. Round, a Caltech postdoctoral researcher, suggests that the interplay between various groups of bacteria living in the intestines has profound effects on human health.

This notion gels with the so-called "hygiene hypothesis." The hypothesis, first proposed two decades ago, links modern practices like sanitation, vaccination, a Western diet, and antibiotic use, which reduce bacterial infections, to the increased prevalence of a variety of illnesses in the developed world, including inflammatory bowel disease, asthma, multiple sclerosis, and Type 1 diabetes. However, it is now clear that increased living standards and antibacterial drugs affect not only infectious microbes, but all of the beneficial ones that we may depend on for our well-being.

"Through societal measures we have changed our association with the microbial world in a very short time span. We don't have
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Contact: Kathy Svitil
ksvitil@caltech.edu
626-395-8022
California Institute of Technology
Source:Eurekalert

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