In vivo reprogramming in inflammatory bowel disease

The direct reprogramming of somatic cells has immense implications in various areas of medicine. Although remarkable progress has been made in developing novel reprogramming methods, the efficiency and fidelity of reprogramming still need to be improved. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) involves chronic inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract with a complex etiology caused by various genetic, immunological and environmental factors. Recently, the role of stem cells has been proposed in pathogenesis and therapy of IBD. However, the efficiency and the safety of the stem cell treatments depend on the origin of the stem cell and the administration method. We hypothesize that the reprogramming of the intestinal cells into a pluripotent state is of huge importance for IBD therapy and prevention. The vectors carrying reprogramming genes encoding pluripotency factors can be transferred to the damaged tissue, in this case the intestine, by means of invasive bacterial vectors able to colonize colon mucosa. Reconstruction of tissues in vivo might avoid problems encountered in tissue rebuilding in vitro because of lack of appropriate scaffolds and microenvironments. Herein we present a review of recent literature and a perspective of in vivo reprogramming in IBD using bacterial vectors and analyze the rationale for such approach.