"We know that the IL-23 receptor plays an important role in activating inflammation, including in organs of the digestive tract, therefore it could be an extremely important target for improving the management of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis," said Cho. "However, the IL-23 pathway may serve a useful purpose in protecting us from other diseases, so when seeking to block or manipulate its activity with drugs or other means, we need to take this balancing act into consideration."
Cho and co-authors represent the IBD Genetics Consortium, which is funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Cho said large study sizes made possible by the consortium offer more definitive conclusions.
"This important discovery not only offers new hope for better therapies for patients with Crohn's disease, it also highlights the promise of the human genome project and subsequent investments by the NIH in large scale, collaborative research projects to unravel the causes of, and hopefully better treatments for complex, enigmatic diseases," said Stephen P. James, M.D., director of the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition at the National Institutes of Health's NIDDK.