Dr. Cario and colleagues from Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital of Essen, Essen, Germany, and Harvard and University of Massachusetts Medical Schools published intersting article about trypsin-sensitive modulation of intestinal epithelial MD-2 as mechanism of lipopolysaccharide tolerance. The paper appeared in Journal of Immunology, one of the best journals in the medico-biological field.
The article characterized the expression and subcellular distribution of intestinal epithelial MD-2 and delineated potential functional interactions with trypsin and then alteration in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The authors obtained confocal images using Zeiss LSM510 and then quantified the extent of colocalization in the sections using CoLocalizer Pro software. Pearson’s correlation and the Manders’ overlap coefficients were employed.
It was concluded that endoplasmic reticulum-associated MD-2 expression in IBD may be altered by ileal protease in inflammation, leading to impaired LPS recognition and hyporesponsiveness through MD-2 proteolysis in IEC, thus implying a physiologic mechanism that helps maintain LPS tolerance in the intestine. J Immunol 2006, 176:4258-4266.
