BioCentury
ARTICLE | Cover Story

Debugging Crohn's disease

July 11, 2013 7:00 AM UTC

The intestinal flora of patients with Crohn's disease is frequently populated by adherent-invasive Escherichia coli, which cause intestinal inflammation. Although this inflammatory response is typically treated with tumor necrosis factor-lowering therapies, University of Nantes Angers Le Mans researchers have gone right to the source and targeted the bacteria directly with modified mannosides.1 The researchers are planning to assess the compounds in a chronic mouse model for the disease.

CD is caused by a group of infectious bacterial strains that trigger a tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-induced inflammatory response. Patients experience a shift in the composition of their enteric microbiota, called dysbiosis,2,3 that is associated with overexpression of carcinoembryonic antigen-related cell adhesion molecule 6 (CEACAM6; NCA; CD66c).4...