Dr. Randy Longman
Dr. Randy Longman, Director, Jill Roberts Center for Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and colleagues have published breakthrough findings in Cell Host and Microbe on a type of gut bacteria that promotes inflammation in the intestine.
It was found that patients with Crohn’s disease have an overabundance of an inflammation-producing gut bacteria, Escherichia coli (AIEC). The investigators discovered that the inflammation produced in the intestine was caused by a metabolite, produced by AIEC, that interacts with the immune system cells in the lining of the intestine. The investigators carried out experiments that showed by either reducing the bacteria’s food supply or eliminating a key enzyme in the process relieved gut inflammation in a mouse model of Crohn’s disease.
Dr. Longman, senior author of the paper, stated, “The study reveals a therapeutically targetable weak point in the bacteria.” Having revealed this weak point, the team looks forward to further investigations that will include studying the role of an enzyme called fucosyltransferase 2 in protecting the gut against the inflammatory cascade and, ultimately, to testing potential treatments for patients with Crohn’s disease.
Dr. Longman’s colleagues on this study included Drs. Ellen Scherl and Chun-Jun Guo, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, WDOM, and collaborators Dr. Gretchen Diehl, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Dr. Kenneth Simpson, Cornell University, Ithaca. The study’s co-lead author, Dr. Monica Viladomiu, is a post-doctoral associate in medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and in the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Weill Cornell Medicine. Maeva Metz, also a co-lead author, is a Weill Cornell Medicine Graduate School of Medical Sciences doctoral candidate in Dr. Longman’s laboratory.