COMMENTARY
Osteopontin
Osteopontin: a new addition to the constellation of cytokines which drive T helper cell type 1 responses in Crohn’s disease
Division of Infection, Inflammation, and Repair, University of Southampton School of Medicine, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor T T MacDonald
Bart’s and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Turner St, London E1 2AD, UK; t.t.macdonald@soton.ac.uk
Osteopontin, a cytokine which promotes Th1 immune responses, is overexpressed in the gut of patients with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis. The main cellular source of this cytokine appears to be gut plasma cells.
Keywords: osteopontin; Crohn’s disease; ulcerative colitis; Th1 immune response
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Crohn’s disease appears to be caused by an excessive CD4+ T helper cell type I response directed against undefined antigens of the commensal bacterial flora.1 T cells from affected areas of Crohn’s disease mucosa produce enhanced amounts of interferon 
(IFN-) and tumour necrosis factor 
. Other markers of Th1 cells, such as expression of the transcription factor T-bet, the high affinity ß2 chain of the interleukin 12 (IL-12) receptor, and activated STAT4, all indicate that the mucosal environment in Crohn’s disease favours Th1 polarisation.1
It is important to emphasise that CD4 T cells in normal bowel are also Th1 skewed and express T-bet, so that the differences seen in Crohn’s disease are quantitative rather than qualitative.2 Normal mucosal T cells are however susceptible to apoptosis, whereas this is not the case in Crohn’s disease,3 suggesting that it is the persistence and accumulation of Th1 cells which drives tissue
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