The team, led by Frederick Miller at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Durham, North Carolina, analysed serum samples from more than 14,000 people, collected as part of the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1988 and 2012. The mouse model, engineered by Bana Jabri and her team at the University of Chicago in Illinois, has the DNA sequence HLA-DQ8 and reproduces the villous atrophy caused by eating gluten by producing a compound called IL-15 in the gut, which is characteristic of active coeliac disease. [...]the disease can be reversed when the mouse receives a gluten-free diet, just as in people. Because only the mice that harboured both types of bacterium showed more severe symptoms, the authors concluded that understanding microbes' synergistic interactions might help to identify preventive strategies. [...]an international team led by Anne-Katrin Pröbstel at the University of Basel in Switzerland and Sergio Baranzini at the University of California, San Francisco, uncovered the first evidence that during MS flare-ups, immune cells activated by certain bacteria living in the gut can travel to the brain, where they help to reduce inflammation.
Research round-up: autoimmune disease