Inflammatory Bowel Disease-Associated Gut Commensals Degrade Components of the Extracellular Matrix.

ABSTRACT: Extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling has emerged as a key feature of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and ECM fragments have been proposed as markers of clinical disease severity. Recent studies report increased protease activity in the gut microbiota of IBD patients. Nonetheless, the relationship between gut microbiota and ECM remodeling has remained unexplored. We hypothesized that members of the human gut microbiome could degrade the host ECM and that bacteria-driven remodeling, in turn, could enhance colonic inflammation. Through a variety of in vitro assays, we first confirmed that multiple bacterial species found in the human gut are capable of degrading specific ECM components. Clinical stool samples obtained from ulcerative colitis patients also exhibited higher levels of

SUBMITTER: Porras AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9765649 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature