Immune regulation, cellular trafficking and chemokine receptors in intestinal inflammation

肠道暴露于大量的外来物质或抗原，从食物到肠道中大量的细菌。肠道免疫系统已经开发出复杂的和知之甚少的机制，以防止炎症反应这些抗原。这些控制机制的崩溃可能是导致腹痛、腹泻和出血的慢性肠道疾病（称为炎症性肠病）的部分原因。最近描述的一种免疫细胞类型，称为调节性T细胞（T reg），是一种强大的候选细胞，是肠道炎症的主要控制者。我们知道，T细胞在称为趋化因子的肠样蛋白质的影响下移动到体内的各个部位，但肠中T reg细胞的存在，它们的特征，它们的行为以及它们对趋化因子的特异性反应都是未知的。这些研究旨在检查人类和小鼠肠道中T reg细胞的存在和性质，包括健康和炎症，并探索这些细胞如何在趋化因子的影响下迁移到肠道中。这些知识将有助于我们理解肠道免疫和免疫反应的内源性调节，并将为炎症性肠病和潜在的其他炎症性疾病的治疗提供新的靶点。

The intestine is exposed to a vast array of foreign substances, or antigens, from food to the abundant bacteria that populate the gut. The gut immune system has developed elaborate and poorly understood mechanisms for preventing inflammation in response to these antigens. A breakdown in these control mechanisms may be partly responsible for the chronic intestinal diseases known as inflammatory bowel diseases, which cause abdominal pain, diarrhoea and bleeding. A recently described immune cell type, known as a regulatory T cell (T reg), is a powerful candidate cell as a master controller of intestinal inflammation. We know that T cells move to various sites in the body under the influence of hormone-like proteins known as chemokines, but the existence of T reg cells in the intestine, their characteristics, their behaviour and their specific response to chemokines, are all unknown. These studies aim to examine the presence and nature of T reg cells in human and mouse intestine, in both health and inflammation, and to explore how these cells migrate into the gut under the influence of chemokines. This knowledge will help in our understanding of intestinal immunity and endogenous regulation of immune responses, and will provide new targets for treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, and potentially other inflammatory diseases.