A research team at the University of Chicago has made a breakthrough discovery that could pave the way to a new treatment for celiac disease, a painful digestive ailment that afflicts about one in every 100 people. Working with mice, investigators found that increased levels of interleukin-15 and retinoic acid conspired to trigger the autoimmune reaction. By blocking IL-15, the scientists were able to prevent the chemical reaction that triggers an event.
Dr. Bana Jabri, co-director of the university's Digestive Disease Research Core Center, says this is the first time investigators found that added retinoic acid can help disrupt the body's ability to tolerate gluten and other food antigens. "Retinoic acid has long been viewed as a regulatory factor when this inflammation occurs, but our findings suggest a completely new role," she told HealthDay.
For this study, Jabri and colleagues combined insights and data from celiac disease patients cared for at the University of Chicago's Celiac Disease Center with experiments using a mouse model of the disease. Moving back and forth between "human data, where we develop our ideas, and mouse experiments, where we test them," was extremely helpful, said Jabri. "In turn, the mouse model gave us insights into the human disease."
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