Intestine in Biological News

Form of Crohn's disease traced to disabled gut cells

... is caused by misdirected immune responses in the intestine that damage gut tissue. In addition, cells in the ... they package as granules and secrete into the intestine to defend the body against infection. "When ... bowel, Li collects samples removed from the intestine for research. Selecting tissue from patients with ...

Caution on stem cell therapy

... and lower thirds of the mouse's guts. The small intestine in a mouse is almost 12 inches long if stretched ... are probably different stem cells in the small intestine doing different things." If more than one ... Guts of Adult Stem Cells Stem cells in the intestine are among the best studied. They are required to ...

Dissecting the genetic components of adaptation of E. coli to the mouse gut

... one of the first bacteria to colonize the human intestine at birth. The mammalian intestine is therefore a privileged site to study how ... to the outside but most prominently in our intestine where they develop a high degree of ...

Enzyme involved in inflammatory bowel disease discovered at Penn State College of Medicine

... the small intestine, or terminal ileum, and is also present in the large intestine at a lower level. The European researchers found an alteration in the ... researchers used a mouse model of IBD, replicating inflammation in the intestine like that in human ulcerative colitis. Mice lacking meprin had more severe ...

Gladstone scientists reveal key enzyme in fat absorption

... was that the lack of Mgat2 may reduce the uptake of fat in the small intestine and delay its entry into the blood. This process may dissociate fat from ... the study. "Our findings suggest that inhibiting this enzyme in the small intestine might be an effective way to treating metabolic diseases that result from ...

Robotic surgery lowers risk of a rare but serious complication of gastric bypass

... Texas group. A gastrointestinal leak, which can occur when the small intestine is reconnected to a small pouch created in the stomach, often produces ... can suture the area between the stomach and the section of the small intestine with confidence." Wilson, medical director of the bariatric surgery ...

Syracuse University partners with Serum Institute of India to develop vaccines for children

... digestive system unharmed, and transport it through the wall of the small intestine where it can be absorbed into the bloodstream. "Tetanus is a strange and ... Doyle says. "We need to deliver the viral capsid to the wall of the small intestine and keep it there long enough to trigger an immune response directly in ...

Probiotics help gastric-bypass patients lose weight more quickly, Stanford study shows

... the food doesn't go down right," he said. When no anatomical reasons could be found for blockages, he hypothesized that a build-up of bacteria in the intestine bacterial overgrowth might be the culprit. "Bacterial overgrowth can be bad in that it changes your motility, how you empty," Morton said. "A ...

Stem cell focus for IBD wound healing

... present in sections of diseased bowel." IBD affects around one in 400 people in the UK. Common symptoms include inflammation and ulceration of the intestine and colon, pain, severe diarrhoea, tiredness and weight loss. The cause of the disease is yet to be definitively identified, although scientists ...

Yale researchers uncover secrets of salmonella's stealth attack

... A single crafty protein allows the deadly bacterium Salmonella enterica to both invade cells lining the intestine and hijack cellular functions to avoid destruction, Yale researchers report in the April 17 issue of the journal Cell . This evolutionary ...

Waste from gut bacteria helps host control weight, UT Southwestern researchers report

... points the way to a potential method of controlling weight, the researchers said. "It's quite possible that blocking this receptor molecule in the intestine might fight a certain kind of obesity by blocking absorption of energy from the gut," said Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa, professor of molecular genetics at ...

Breakthrough optical technology to assess colon cancer risk, accuracy

... tool for enhancing polyp detection and could lead to improvements in colon cancer prevention. "Our premise is that since the lining of the large intestine -- rectum and colon -- is contiguous, if you see an abnormality in one part of the colon, then somewhere else in the colon you have a higher ...

'Friendly' bacteria protect against type 1 diabetes, Yale researchers find

... environment, lacking "friendly'' gut bacteria, the mice developed severe diabetes. NOD mice exposed to harmless bacteria normally found in the human intestine were significantly less likely to develop diabetes, they reported. "Understanding how gut bacteria work on the immune system to influence whether ...

Almost 7 million pregnant in sub-Saharan Africa infected with hookworms; at risk of anaemia

... or almost 7 million, are infected with hookworms and at increased risk of developing anaemia. Hookworms are parasitic worms which live in the intestine and can cause anaemia (lower than normal number of red blood cells in the blood). Their importance in causing anaemia during pregnancy has been ...

ETH Zurich study on salmonella self-destruction

... enter the gastro-intestinal tract where it triggers infection. Vomiting and diarrhoea can last for days. Normally, salmonellae grow poorly in the intestine because they are not competitive with other bacteria of the gut. However, this dynamic changes if salmonellae induce an in-flammatory response, ...

Recurrence of group B strep high in subsequent pregnancies, say UT Houston obstetricians

... to carriers but in some cases can be deadly to an infant passing through the mother's birth canal. It is normally found in the vagina and/or lower intestine of 10 to 30 percent of all adult women. GBS is not a sexually transmitted disease. Those women who test positive for GBS are considered "colonized." ...

Caltech researchers find dual-use sexual attraction and population-control chemicals in nematodes

... or economic hardship, with damage amounting to billions of dollars per year. For example, hookworm, a parasitic nematode that lives in the small intestine of humans, is believed to infect one billion people worldwide and in developing countries is the leading cause of illnesses in babies, children, ...

'Addicted' cells provide early cancer diagnosis

... study published in the British Journal of Cancer they measured the numbers of methyl groups attached to DNA taken from the cells lining the large intestine of bowel cancer patients. They found subtle changes that may make the whole surface of the bowel more vulnerable to the eventual development of ...

Otters reveal their identity

... who together with her UFZ colleagues collected over 700 faecal samples in the Oberlausitz over the last two years. As the cells at the surface of the intestine are constantly regenerated in vertebrates and the old cells are discarded, tiny DNA traces are found on each faecal sample therefore revealing the ...

American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- April 16, 2008

... polymer shrinks and releases insulin. The addition of wheat germ agglutinin, a type of sticky plant sugar, allows the polymer to stick to the small intestine for prolonged periods. This improves the duration of insulin absorption, the researchers say. MTS ARTICLE #1 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wheat Germ ...

Stem cells and cancer: cancer pathways that also control the adult stem cell population

... The team from Cardiff University has used genetic technology to manipulate intestinal stem cells and mimic the process by which a part of the intestine called the crypts is regenerated following high levels of DNA damage or injury. By doing this, they have found that a mechanism called Wnt ...

UC Davis researchers discover how HIV turns food-poisoning into lethal infection

... co-author of the study. The results of the study, which will be published online by Nature Medicine March 23, revealed that viral infection of the intestine results in the depletion of a type of white blood cell, called Th-17, in the gut mucosa. This T helper lymphocyte produces IL-17, a cytokine or ...

Europe's most common genetic disease is a liver disorder

... of intermediate molecules, but when the HFE gene is mutated the result is that less hepcidin is produced. This in turn means iron uptake in the intestine cannot be limited as effectively and an overload develops, says Martina Muckenthaler, professor at the University of Heidelberg. The research is a ...

American Chemical Society's weekly PressPac -- Jan. 2, 2008

... to occur when the protein gluten interacts with an enzyme called transglutaminase 2 (TG2), triggering an autoimmune reaction that damages the small intestine and causes diarrhea, abdominal pain and other symptoms. As a result, people with the disease are urged to follow a strict gluten-free diet. ...

Safe and effective therapy discovered for patients with protein-losing enteropathy

... epithelial cells during PLE episodes. Importantly, the study revealed that loss of HS is a key factor in promoting protein leakage and makes the intestine more susceptible to inflammation and increased hypertension. Co-author Simon Murch, M.D., University of Warwick, UK, first noticed the loss of ...

Mechanism for the in-vivo transport of siRNA

... whether an siRNA-fatty acid molecule is bonded to HDL or LDL: all LDL compounds trigger responses in the liver, but HDL compounds also do so in the intestine or kidneys. An irritating finding The latter finding indicated that the uptake proceeds via HDL and LDL receptors. The researchers proved ...

Your gut has taste receptors

... buds might also be there in the gut. Sweet taste in the tongue depends on the taste receptor T1R3 and the taste G protein gustducin. The small intestine is the major site where dietary sugars are absorbed into the body to provide energy, and maintain normal metabolism and homeostasis. If glucose is ...

Dominant cholesterol-metabolism ideas challenged by new research

... to generate an HDL cholesterol particle. HDL cholesterol carries the lipids through the blood stream to the liver, where they are dumped into the intestine for excretion or destruction. The expression of PS on the cell's surface might be accomplished in one of two ways. First, the enzyme that ...

Like a snail through the intestinal canal

... slime, called mucus, on the inside of the large intestine (colon). The robots, as they move forward under ... that are suitable for this. Dodou used a pig's intestine to evaluate how this material worked. Her ... cannot be exerted, because this would cause the intestine to become deformed. The solution then is found in ...

Gut protein found to protect against infection and intestinal breakdown

... A protein that binds to bile in the small intestine may hold the key to preventing infection and ... generated by the liver and flows into the small intestine via a duct, contains harsh acids that help the ... small task; if the innermost lining of the small intestine alone were unfolded, it would be the size of a ...

Why doesn't the immune system attack the small intestine?

... foreign microbes like bacteria ?doesn't attack tissues in the small intestine that harbor millions of bacteria cells. In a study in the February issue ... of the immune system actually play an important role in protecting the intestine from immune system attack," says Turley. "Because the cells are found in ...

Gut microbes' partnership helps body extract energy from food, store it as fat

... as polysaccharides. Many types of polysaccharides pass through the small intestine mostly unchanged because our human genome does not have the genes needed ... such as hot springs. Scientists first isolated archaea from the human intestine in 1982, and have recently recognized M. smithii as the most common ...

New GI technologies improve internal organ visualization

... new endoscopic procedures have been utilized recently to examine the small intestine for abnormalities or diseases: capsule endoscopy (CE) and double balloon ... When inflated with air, the balloons can expand sections of the small intestine to allow the camera a closer examination. In the multicenter study, ...

UCSD team unmasks family of immune system invaders

... When spoiled food is eaten, the pathogenic bacteria pass into the intestine and colon, where they meet up with a layer of cells lining these organs ... wall without any doors, a barrier that blocks bacterial entry from the intestine and colon into the rest of the body. However, bacterial pathogens can ...

Recombinant DNA technology may enable oral, rather than injectable, delivery of protein drugs

... or lipids, and their permeability allows them to be absorbed from the intestine into the body," says Shen. "On the other hand, protein-based drugs are large and bulky, which can prevent them from crossing the intestine and gaining access to the sites where they are needed. They are also very ...

Stanford gut check shows diversity of intestinal ecosystem

... analyzed samples from six different anatomical sites inside the large intestine as well as a stool sample. Eckburg and his team determined more than ... to examine how microbial communities differ among locations within the intestine as well as among different people. "We were surprised at the degree to ...

W.M. Keck Foundation funds study of friendly microbes

... and analyzing the genomes of "friendly" bacteria that inhabit the intestine and identifying the natural metabolic products that they synthesize in ... techniques for harvesting microbial communities along the length of the intestine and sequencing the genomes of new species, without having to culture them ...

Scientists sequence genome of parasite responsible for common sexually transmitted infection

... is not entirely clear why the genome is so large and repetitive, researchers theorize that the parasite evolved over time, previously inhabiting the intestine and later moving to the urogenital tract, which resulted in increased cell size and, subsequently, a considerably expanded genome. The ...

Bacterial protein shows promise in treating intestinal parasites

... or larval, stages and adult parasites, as well as impairs the excretion of eggs by female worms. Hookworms cause anemia by attaching to the intestine and feeding on their host's blood and nutrients, causing anemia and weight loss. The researchers said in their paper that because this ...