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— BUSM researchers develop blood test to detect membranous nephropathy — Research conducted by a pair of physicians at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Centre (BMC) has led to the development of a test that can help diagnose…
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— Probiotics reduce infections for patients in intensive care — Traumatic brain injury is associated with a profound suppression of the patient's ability to fight infection. At the same time the patient also often suffers hyper-inflammation, due…
— High blood sugar levels in older women linked to colorectal cancer — Elevated blood sugar levels are associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer, according to a study led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.…
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Conquering a severe complication of celiac disease
One severe complication of celiac disease is enteropathy-associated T cell lymphoma, a high-grade invasive lymphoma with a very poor prognosis. Previous research has suggested that chronic exposure of immune cells in the walls of the small intestine, which are known as intraepithelial lymphocytes, to potent anti-death signals initiated by the soluble factor IL-15 contributes to the development of enteropathy-associated T cell lymphoma.
A team of researchers, at INSERM U989, Universite Rene Descartes, France, has now identified the survival signals delivered by IL-15 to freshly isolated human intraepithelial lymphocytes and to intraepithelial lymphocyte cell lines derived from patients with type II refractory celiac disease - a clinical state considered an intermediary step between celiac disease and enteropathy-associated T cell lymphoma. Importantly, treatment with an antibody directed at IL-15 caused intraepithelial lymphocytes to die and wiped out their accumulation in mice overexpressing human IL-15 in the lining of their gut.
The team, led by Nadine Cerf-Bensussan and Bertrand Meresse, therefore suggests that IL-15 and its downstream survival signals might provide new targets for the treatment of type II refractory celiac disease.
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