celiac disease tagged posts

PRC1 (polycomb complex) maintains intestinal homeostasis by repressing the expression of ZICs, a family of transcription factors inactivating the β-catenin/TCF complex. Importantly, interfering with PRC1 activity completely inhibits the formation of Wnt-dependent tumors.

Researchers at the University of Tampere discovered a regulation mechanism governing the intestinal homeostasis. Disturbances in this mechanism are implicated in celiac disease and possibly also in colorectal cancer. The study provides new information on the pathogenesis of the differentiation defect of the epithelium in the small intestine in celiac disease.

In celiac disease, ingested dietary gluten causes intestinal mucosal damage with villus atrophy and crypt hyperplasia...

Coeliac disease incidence rate by month of birth in children aged 0–14.9 years during the period from 1991 to 2009 for the three nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS 1) regions in Sweden.

Circulating viral infections may help explain the temporal and geographical patterns associated with the risk of developing childhood celiac disease, conclude Swedish researchers in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. But the role of vitamin D during pregnancy may also have a part to play, they suggest. They base their findings on a long term study of almost 2 million children up to the age of 15 who had been born in Sweden between 1991 and 2009.

In all, 6569 of these children from 47 hospitals across the country were diagnosed with celiac disease before the age of 15...

Intestinal cells in a healthy individual in which the non-coding RNA of the Inc13 gene appears in red (the red dots would not be seen in a celiac patient). Credit: Image courtesy of University of the Basque Country

40% of the population carry the main risk factor for celiac disease but only 1% go down with it. A new gene that influences its development has been found in what until recently has been known as ‘junk’ DNA.

It has been known for some time that celiac disease develops in people who have a genetic susceptibility, but despite the fact that 40% of the population carry the most decisive risk factor (the HLA-DQ2 and DQ8 polymorphisms), only 1% go on to develop the disease...

The research may strengthen researchers’ abilities to better predict a child’s risk for associated autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune diseases, eg type 1 diabetes, Crohn’s disease and juvenile idiopathic arthritis, collectively affect 1 in 12 persons in the Western hemisphere. They represent a significant cause of chronic disability.

“The results from this study enable us to better understand the genetic component of these diseases and how they are genetically related to each other, thereby explaining why different autoimmune disorders often run in the same family,” said Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D.

The research encompassed 9 pediatric-onset autoimmune diseases (pAIDs): type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, common variable immunodeficiency, systemic lupus eryth...