COMMENTARY

Inflammatory bowel disease

Immune regulation and colitis: suppression of acute inflammation allows the development of chronic inflammatory bowel disease

B Eksteen, L S K Walker, D H Adams

Liver Research Laboratories and MRC Centre for Immune Regulation, Institute for Biomedical Research, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor D H Adams
Liver Research Laboratories, Institute for Biomedical Research, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK;d.h.adams@bham.ac.uk

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Persistent colitis is the result of a balance between local inflammation and regulatory networks. Regulatory T cells have potent anti-inflammatory effects and are likely to be important in the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory bowel disease

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Keywords: intestinal immunity; regulatory T cells; immune regulation; inflammatory bowel disease; dendritic cells

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The success of the gastrointestinal immune system depends on a balance between mounting effective immune responses to pathogenic antigens while suppressing potentially damaging responses against commensal organisms or food antigens. Both the innate and acquired immune system contribute to fighting pathogens. The innate immune system, which includes phagocytes, dendritic cells (DCs), and natural killer (NK) cells, does not require previous exposure to a pathogen and instead relies on evolutionarily ancient pathways such as Toll-like receptors (TLRs) to recognise molecular patterns associated with harmful pathogens.¹ Different TLRs are able to recognise bacterial products or motifs in viral RNA or DNA. TLR activation triggers an immediate response resulting in the activation of phagocytic mechanisms and the production of cytokines and costimulatory signals that activate the cognate immune response.

The cognate or acquired immune system developed in higher vertebrates to provide a more sophisticated response to a wide variety of . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Eksteen, B., Miles, A., Curbishley, S. M., Tselepis, C., Grant, A. J., Walker, L. S. K., Adams, D. H. (2006). Epithelial Inflammation Is Associated with CCL28 Production and the Recruitment of Regulatory T Cells Expressing CCR10. J. Immunol. 177: 593-603 [Abstract] [Full Text]