Dendritic cells (DC) are antigen-presenting cells (APCs) with unique properties that allow them to efficiently process antigens and activate naïve T cells. Mucosal DCs have a particular capacity to induce regulatory T cell differentiation in the steady state, but they are also potent inducers of...

While studies of models of mucosal inflammation has been a mainstay of IBD research for the past half century, it is only in the last 10-15 years that this kind of study has taken its place as primus inter pares among the many approaches to studying these diseases. The reason this has come about...

Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) represent a heterogeneous group of diseases with two distinct disorders of unknown etiology, Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Both diseases are characterized by chronic intestinal inflammation. Genetic susceptibility, environmental triggers...

The pathogenesis of complex chronic diseases like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can no longer be viewed as a one-way street in which classical immune cells have exclusive control over the initiation, duration and outcome of the disease. There is enough experimental evidence to demonstrate that...

The mucosal immune system is faced with a daunting challenge. It must quickly and efficiently protect the epithelial barrier from invasion by microbes while avoiding a response to antigenic stimuli from the commensal bacteria or food proteins that constantly bombard it.1 It meets this challenge...

Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are caused by the over-activity of the immune system. Current and novel therapies are designed to dampen these over-active responses. Analysis of the types of immune responses ongoing in diseased mucosa of inflammatory bowel disease patients...

For many decades immune reactions have been classified as humoral and cellular, innate and acquired, and the essential cells for protective and tolerogenic reactions were at first subdivided into TH1 and TH2. Later TH3 and TH0 cells were added and the antigen-presenting cell family is...

The intestine contains an abundance of cells of the innate and acquired immune system, and among these T cells represent a major component. Intestinal T cells are distributed among the various compartments in the mucosal immune system, including GALT, the epithelial layer, and the lamina...

Secretory immunity is the best-defined part of the mucosal immune system. This adaptive humoral defense mechanism depends on a fine-tuned cooperation between secretory epithelia and local plasma cells. Such mucosal immunocytes produce preferentially dimers and larger polymers of...

The nervous and the immune systems are the body’s “supersystems” permanently sensing, processing and responding to changes of the external and internal micro- and macro-environment. Together, both systems provide function, integrity, and homeostasis of the organism, and it is supposed that...

The integrity of the intestinal mucosa depends on a functional coordination of the epithelium, lumenal microorganisms, and the local immune system. The mammalian immune system is superbly organized for innate and adaptive recognition of microbial antigens,1,2 a defensive capacity that must be...

Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are the two most common forms of chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The etiology of IBD is still unclear and should be considered as multi-factorial according to recent studies.1 Genetic factors seem to play a pathogenetic role as well as...

Antibiotic and probiotic agents have increasingly moved in the focus of basic and clinical research as well as clinical trials for IBD therapy. Both approaches modulate the intestinal flora, the former through eradication or reduction, the latter through establishment or increase of luminal...

Although genetic background is an important prerequisite for Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and experiment intestinal inflammation, yet to be identified environmental factors profoundly influence genetic susceptibility. The influence of the environment is documented by the relatively...

One approach toward understanding the pathophysiology of Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) is through genetic linkage and association studies. These approaches have provided support for general genomic regions (linkage studies) potentially containing inflammatory bowel...