No abstract

Studies have shown that bone marrow cells have the potential to differentiate into a variety of cell types. Here we show that bone marrow cells can repopulate the epithelia of the human gastrointestinal tract. Epithelial cells of male donor origin were distributed in every part of the gastrointestinal tract of female bone marrow transplant recipients. Donor-derived epithelial cells substantially repopulated the gastrointestinal tract during epithelial regeneration after graft-versus-host disease or ulcer formation. Regeneration of gastrointestinal epithelia with donor-derived cells in humans shows a potential clinical application of bone marrow-derived cells for repairing severely damaged epithelia, not only in the gastrointestinal tract but also in other tissues.

No abstract

It is well known that immune responses in the intestine remain in a state of controlled inflammation, suggesting that not only active suppression by regulatory T cells plays an important role in the normal intestinal homeostasis, but also its dysregulation leads to the development of inflammatory bowel disease. In this study, we demonstrate that the CD4+CD25bright T cells reside in the human intestinal lamina propria (LP) and functionally retain regulatory activities. All human LP CD4+ T cells regardless of CD25 expression constitutively expressed CTLA-4, glucocorticoid-induced TNFR family-related protein, and Foxp3 and proliferate poorly. Although LP CD4+CD25− T cells showed an activated and anergic/memory phenotype, they did not retain regulatory activity. In LP CD4+CD25+ T cells, however, cells expressing CD25 at high levels (CD4+CD25bright) suppressed the proliferation and various cytokine productions of CD4+CD25− T cells. LP CD4+CD25bright T cells by themselves produced fewer amounts of IL-2, IFN-γ, and IL-10. Interestingly, LP CD4+CD25bright T cells with regulatory T activity were significantly increased in patients with active inflammatory bowel disease. These results suggest that CD4+CD25bright T cells found in the normal and inflamed intestinal mucosa selectively inhibit the host immune response and therefore may contribute to the intestinal immune homeostasis.