Mucus Useful in Treating Various Gut Diseases

Mucus may help in increasing body's immunity and simultaneously fight inflammation, a U.S. study claims.

The study conducted by researchers from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai's Immunology Institute discovered that mucus prevents inflammatory reactions in the gut and can be manufactured and given to people. This is the first study that claims that the mucus in the large intestine offers an anti inflammatory and self regulating immune function. And this mucus may be helpful in treating various gut diseases that include inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn's disease and Cancer.

Report according to BBC state, "Bottled mucus may one day play a role in some gut diseases."

"We asked ourselves whether dendritic cells in the gut could capture mucus, as well as bacteria and food antigens," said Andrea Cerutti, MD, PhD, the study's senior author and Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine. "We found that whenever mucus was present, it was stimulating the production of anti-inflammatory cytokines [regulatory proteins released by the cells of the immune system that act to regulate an immune response]," he added. 

The immune cells found in the mucosa that begin an immune response are called the Dendritic cells. They noticed that intestinal mucus played the role of a barrier against bacteria and dietary toxins and curbed the onset of inflammatory reactions. Till now, this property of the mucus was not known.

For this study researchers isolated and analyzed the mucus taken from the intestine of healthy pigs, mice as well as from the human intestinal cell line. The mucus's anti-inflammatory property was depicted using cellular immunology and molecular biology. The mucus from the healthy mice was given to the genetically engineered mice that lacked intestinal mucus and those mice with colitis (inflammation of the colon).

Everyday a person releases one liter of mucus normally. It is secreted throughout the body through mucosal tissues. Nearly 80 percent of the immune cells are present in the large intestine.

The chronic inflammatory disease of the intestine is called Crohn's disease and it generally causes ulcers in colon and small intestine. The intestinal mucus in people with this disease and inflammatory bowel disease undergoes alteration that obstructs the progress of a protective anti inflammatory response.

Mucus evens has a positive effect on cancer. And once the researchers gain a complete understanding of the properties of mucus, they can better use it in treating tumors.

Dr. Cerutti concludes, "Several aggressive tumors, such as colon, ovarian, and breast cancers produce mucous, including MUC2. Mucus produced by malignant cells may prevent protective immune responses against the malignant cells." 

The study was published in the journal Science.