Protective Partnership

If a house on your street was attacked, would you join forces with your neighbours to repair the damage and fend off the intruders? That, it seems, is what two cell types in your gut do. The intestine lining faces a constant barrage of physical forces and biological material, so regular maintenance and repairs are essential. Researchers investigating this regulation, and how inflammatory bowel diseases such as colitis arise when it goes wrong, looked at the role of interleukin-11, a product of the immune system. Without it, colitis in mice worsened and more cells of the gut lining died. Interleukin-11 (green, present in damaged areas of tissue) is produced by connective cells called fibroblasts, but the researchers found that other immune cells also regulate its levels by releasing highly reactive molecules. Interleukin-11 protects the lining during inflammation, and the collaboration that produces it must be considered in any potential treatments.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Takashi Nishina and colleagues
• Department of Biochemistry, Toho University School of Medicine, Ota-ku, Tokyo, Japan
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in iScience, January 2023