ABOVE: Researchers used intestinal inflammation in mice to gauge T cell interactions with a gut bacterium’s antigen in vivo.
FROM WEGORZEWSKA ET AL., SCI IMMUNOL, 4:EAAU9079, 2019. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM AAAS
The paper
M.M. Wegorzewska et al., “Diet modulates colonic T cell responses by regulating the expression of a Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron antigen,” Sci Immunol, 4:eaau9079, 2019.
The gut microbiome serves many useful functions in the body, but it can also rev up the immune system in harmful ways. For example, when Thad Stappenbeck of Washington University Medical School in St. Louis and colleagues went looking for the culprits of colitis in a mouse model that is genetically susceptible to inflammation, they turned up Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron (B. theta)—a normally peaceful bacterial species that for some reason provoked an immune response in these mice.
Stappenbeck and colleagues used in vitro tests to figure out which B. theta antigen interacted strongly with receptors ...
