title: May bacterial or pancreatic proteases play a critical role in inflammatory bowel disease?
abstract: In a recent review paper, Carroll and Maharshak discussed a critical role of enteric bacterial proteases in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). I take a great interest in this paper as I also suspected proteases, not from the bacteria, but those originated from the pancreas that failed to be inactivated in the lower gut due to a reduction in gut bacteria, may have played a critical role in the pathogenesis of IBD, which was first published more than a decade ago and discussed again in more detail in a recent paper published in this journal. Antibiotics may result in a big reduction in gut bacteria and bacterial proteases, but multiple studies demonstrated dramatic increased of pancreatic proteases like trypsin and chymotrypsin in the feces of animals or patients treated with antibiotics. Multiple large-scale studies also demonstrated use of antibiotics caused an increase but not decrease in the risk of developing IBD, suggesting impaired inactivation and degradation of pancreatic proteases may have played a more critical role in the pathogenesis of IBD.
authors.affiliation: Xiaofa Qin, GI Biopharma Inc,Westfield, NJ 07090, United States.
authors.forename: Xiaofa
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001419:Bacteria / Q000201:enzymology*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000382:microbiology*; D007422:Intestines / Q000382:microbiology*; D010447:Peptide Hydrolases / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D010447:Peptide Hydrolases
keywords: Bacteria; Crohn’s disease; Inflammatory bowel diseases; Pancreas; Proteases; Ulcerative colitis