By Meghan Rosen
Good gut bacteria might not help people with Crohn’s disease.
Protective microbial messages go unread in mice and in human immune cells with certain defective genes, researchers report online May 5 in Science.
The findings are the first to tie together the roles of genes and beneficial microbes in the inflammatory bowel disease, says biologist Brett Finlay of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who was not involved in the new work.
“This is a major step forward in this area,” he says. Human genes and friendly microbes work together to control inflammation, he says. “And when you muck that up, things can go awry.”