Helminths in the gastrointestinal tract as modulators of immunity and pathology

Helminth parasites are highly prevalent in many low- and middle-income countries, in which inflammatory bowel disease and other immunopathologies are less frequent than in the developed world. Many of the most common helminths establish themselves in the gastrointestinal tract and can exert counter-inflammatory influences on the host immune system. For these reasons, interest has arisen as to how parasites may ameliorate intestinal inflammation and whether these organisms, or products they release, could offer future therapies for immune disorders. In this review, we discuss interactions between helminth parasites and the mucosal immune system, as well as the progress being made toward identifying mechanisms and molecular mediators through which it may be possible to attenuate pathology in the intestinal tract.

• Publication year

  2017

• Venue

  American Journal of Physiology - Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology

• Publication date

  2017-03-16

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1152/ajpgi.00024.2017PMID 28302598PMCID 5495915
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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