Key Regulator of Intestinal Homeostasis Identified

SP140, an epigenetic reader protein mutated in a number of autoimmune disorders, is essential for macrophage function and preventing intestinal inflammation, scientists show. 

Read more: Key Regulator of Intestinal Homeostasis Identified

Artist's rendition of a macrophage in the gut and epigenome (green balls are the basic units of chromatin,
with nucleosomes wrapped twice around an octamer of a histone)

Researchers are only beginning to understand the roles of the hundreds of proteins involved in reading, writing, and erasing the epigenome. One of the epigenetic regulators, SP140, which is mutated in a number autoimmune disorders, including Crohn’s disease and multiple sclerosis, is also essential to macrophage function and intestinal homeostasis in both humans and mice, scientists reported today (March 3) in Science Immunology.

“Many immune-mediated disorders are driven by a combination of genetic susceptibility as well as environmental influences [so] epigenetics is a suitable critical juncture between those two aspects of the disease,” said coauthor Kate Jeffrey, a researcher investigating the epigenetic control of innate immunity at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Source: the-scientist

Gut Bacteria, Antibiotics, and the Rise of Type 1 Diabetes

Breaking research investigates antibiotic use in children and the later development of type 1 diabetes. Could antibiotics be altering the gut biome and impacting future health?

In America, more than 30 million people have a diabetes diagnosis.

Of these cases, around 5 percent are classed as type 1 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes, usually diagnosed in young adults and children, is an autoimmune disorder; it is sometimes referred to as juvenile diabetes.

The individual's immune system attacks and destroys specific cells within the pancreas - islet cells - that create insulin.

With the following decrease in insulin, blood glucose builds up and damages nerves and blood vessels.

Read more: Gut Bacteria, Antibiotics, and the Rise of Type 1 Diabetes

The wide usage of antibiotics may be affecting children's microbiomes and future immune systems.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Could Altered Gut Bacteria be a Cause?

What causes chronic fatigue syndrome? The answer to this question continues to baffle researchers, so much so that some have even questioned whether the condition exists. Now, a new study by researchers from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, may have shed light on a biological cause, after finding that patients with chronic fatigue have an altered gut microbiome.

Senior author Maureen Hanson, of the Departments of Molecular Biology and Genetics and Microbiology at Cornell, and colleagues publish their findings in the journal Microbiome.

Also referred to as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a condition characterized by extreme fatigue that does not improve with rest.

Read more: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Could Altered Gut Bacteria be a Cause?

Researchers found that people with CFS have abnormalities in their gut microbiome.

Source: medicalnewstoday