The intestine maintains an exquisitely delicate balance in the body, absorbing nutrients and water while also ensuring a healthy relationship with the gut microbiome - the constellation of microorganisms that reside in the human gut, regulating its function in myriad ways that affect health and disease.
- By ALLESSANDRA DiCORATO | Broad Institute
This precarious equilibrium can be disrupted in conditions such as celiac disease, ulcerative colitis, or Crohn's disease, leading to aberrant immune response and inflammation. Yet scientists don't fully understand how different regions of the intestine resist or adapt to changes in the environment and how disease disrupts that ability.
Now, Harvard Medical School researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital have analyzed the entire mouse intestine, creating a map of gene expression and cell behavior by location in response to various perturbations such as microbiome changes, inflammation, and circadian rhythms.
The work reveals tight regulation of cell types and states in different regions of the organ, as well as a unique segment of the colon that is controlled by immune signals.
