Highlights d M. restricta is associated with the colonic mucosa in Crohn's disease (CD) patients d M. restricta exacerbates colitis in wild-type and gnotobiotic mice d M. restricta is found in CD patients with a disease-linked polymorphism in CARD9 d Malassezia-exacerbated colitis in mice requires signaling via CARD9

There has been a recent increase in abstracts and publications reporting intestinal metaplasia in the distal esophagus and cardia. The terms "short segment Barrett's esophagus," "intestinal metaplasia of the esophagogastric junction," and "intestinal metaplasia of the cardia" are being used to describe either similar or different entities. This review article deals with the current data on these issues, the definition of short segment Barrett's esophagus including the endoscopic and histologic criteria, the rationale for separating short segment Barrett's esophagus from intestinal metaplasia of the cardia, and a simple classification of intestinal metaplasia.

The gastrointestinal microbiota influences immune function throughout the body. The gut-lung axis refers to the concept that alterations of gut commensal microorganisms can have a distant effect on immune function in the lung. Overgrowth of intestinal Candida albicans has been previously observed to exacerbate allergic airways disease in mice, but whether subtler changes in intestinal fungal microbiota can affect allergic airways disease is less clear. In this study we have investigated the effects of the population expansion of commensal fungus Wallemia mellicola without overgrowth of the total fungal community. Wallemia spp. are commonly found as a minor component of the commensal gastrointestinal mycobiota in both humans and mice. Mice with an unaltered gut microbiota community resist population expansion when gavaged with W. mellicola; however, transient antibiotic depletion of gut microbiota creates a window of opportunity for expansion of W. mellicola following delivery of live spores to the gastrointestinal tract. This phenomenon is not universal as other commensal fungi (Aspergillus amstelodami, Epicoccum nigrum) do not expand when delivered to mice with antibiotic-depleted microbiota. Mice with Wallemia-expanded gut mycobiota experienced altered pulmonary immune responses to inhaled aeroallergens. Specifically, after induction of allergic airways disease with intratracheal house dust mite (HDM) antigen, mice demonstrated enhanced eosinophilic airway infiltration, airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) to methacholine challenge, goblet cell hyperplasia, elevated bronchoalveolar lavage IL-5, and enhanced serum HDM IgG1. This phenomenon occurred with no detectable Wallemia in the lung. Targeted amplicon sequencing analysis of the gastrointestinal mycobiota revealed that expansion of W. mellicola in the gut was associated with additional alterations of bacterial and fungal commensal communities. We therefore colonized fungus-free Altered Schaedler Flora (ASF) mice with W. mellicola. ASF mice colonized with W. mellicola experienced enhanced severity of allergic airways disease compared to fungus-free control ASF mice without changes in bacterial community composition.

A simplified yoga-based regimen is a safe and effective complementary clinical treatment modality for patients with inflammatory bowel disease during the clinical remission phase.