Relationship between CD40-signaling in dentritic cells and intestinal colitis

The immune system of the gut discriminates between invading pathogens and colonizing commensal bacteria. Specialized populations of intestinal cells integrate local signals to regulate and maintain the homeostatic relationship with the microbiota. Failure to integrate this information into proper regulatory processes can lead to pathologies such as inflammatory bowel diseases, allergies or metabolic syndromes.Dendritic cells mediate between commensal/food antigens and T cells. CD40-signals can stop Treg-suppression of dendritic cells and modulate CD103-expression. To further investigate the role of CD40-signaling in this process, we studied external CD40-triggers and analyzed novel transgenic mice expressing LMP/CD40-molecules in dendritic cells.