Patients with Crohn's disease of the colon have one copy less than healthy persons of the beta-defensin 2 gene, a gene coding for an important defense molecule of the body.
An international research team comprising scientists of the Robert Bosch Hospital in Stuttgart and the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) in Heidelberg have discovered a possible cause of the chronic inflammations.
Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the intestinal tract affecting most commonly the lower part of the small bowel, called the ileum, and the colon. The cause of the disease is unknown; genetic and environmental factors have been suggested to play a role.
Defensins are part of the arsenal of defense weapons used by the human immune system. The peptides consist of only about 30 protein building blocks and act like our body's own antibiotics that protect the mucous membranes from bacterial invasion. Patients with Crohn's disease of the colon (colonic CD) have a lower level of beta-defensins in the mucous membranes. In a collaborative research project headed by Dr. Klaus Fellermann and Professor Eduard F. Stange, Robert Bosch Hospital, Stuttgart, researchers from the German Cancer Research Center and the Universities of Vienna and Davis, California, have now discovered that the number of defensin gene copies has a crucial influence on the development of the disease.