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Sci Transl Med
Vol. 2, Issue 60, p. 60ra88
Sci. Transl. Med. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3001500
  • Research Article
Colitis

IL-22+ CD4+ T Cells Are Associated with Therapeutic Trichuris trichiura Infection in an Ulcerative Colitis Patient

  1. P’ng Loke2,†
  1. 1Division of Experimental Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
  2. 2Department of Medical Parasitology, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY 10010, USA.
  3. 3Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Center for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
  4. 4Sandler Center for Basic Research in Parasitic Diseases, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA.
  1. †To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: png.loke{at}nyumc.org

  1. ↵* These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease, is less common in countries endemic for helminth infections, suggesting that helminth colonization may have the potential to regulate intestinal inflammation in inflammatory bowel diseases. Indeed, therapeutic effects of experimental helminth infection have been reported in both animal models and clinical trials. Here, we provide a comprehensive cellular and molecular portrait of dynamic changes in the intestinal mucosa of an individual who infected himself with Trichuris trichiura to treat his symptoms of ulcerative colitis. Tissue with active colitis had a prominent population of mucosal T helper (TH) cells that produced the inflammatory cytokine interleukin-17 (IL-17) but not IL-22, a cytokine involved in mucosal healing. After helminth exposure, the disease went into remission, and IL-22–producing TH cells accumulated in the mucosa. Genes involved in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism were up-regulated in helminth-colonized tissue, whereas tissues with active colitis showed up-regulation of proinflammatory genes such as IL-17, IL-13RA2, and CHI3L1. Therefore, T. trichiura colonization of the intestine may reduce symptomatic colitis by promoting goblet cell hyperplasia and mucus production through TH2 cytokines and IL-22. Improved understanding of the physiological effects of helminth infection may lead to new therapies for inflammatory bowel diseases.

Footnotes

  • Citation: M. J. Broadhurst, J. M. Leung, V. Kashyap, J. M. McCune, U. Mahadevan, J. H. McKerrow, P. Loke, IL-22+ CD4+ T Cells Are Associated with Therapeutic Trichuris trichiura Infection in an Ulcerative Colitis Patient Sci. Transl. Med. 2, 60ra88 (2010).

Citation: M. J. Broadhurst, J. M. Leung, V. Kashyap, J. M. McCune, U. Mahadevan, J. H. McKerrow, P. Loke, IL-22+ CD4+ T Cells Are Associated with Therapeutic Trichuris trichiura Infection in an Ulcerative Colitis Patient. Sci. Transl. Med. 2, 60ra88 (2010).
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