Researchers at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, together with Newcastle University’s Translational and Clinical Research Institute and the Department of Immunology at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, have identified an important driver of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This discovery reshapes understanding of IBD and opens the way to targeted approaches to diagnosis and treatment in a subset of patients. The findings suggest that inflammatory bowel disease is not a single condition, but a group of biologically distinct diseases driven by different underlying mechanisms.
In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers analysed over 4,900 patients with IBD and made two major discoveries: first, that a substantial subset of patients show autoimmune responses to one of the guardians of the immune system, interleukin-10 (IL-10), which leads to uncontrolled inflammation; and second, that this damaging immune response is the mechanism for one of the strongest known genetic risk factors for IBD.
Antibodies that block interleukin-10 (IL-10), a cell-to-cell messenger that normally acts as one of the body’s key controls on inflammation, effectively remove the immune system’s natural ‘brake’ on inflammation, allowing inflammatory responses to continue unchecked.
IBD, which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects around 500,000 people in the UK and millions worldwide. It is a lifelong condition that commonly begins in adolescence or early adulthood and can require repeated hospital treatment, long-term immunosuppressive medication and, in some cases, surgery. Despite advances in treatment, many patients cycle through multiple therapies without achieving lasting disease control – impacting their lives and costing the health care system millions.
Read the full story on the Nuffield Department of Medicine website.