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The Citrobacter rodentium Mouse Model: Studying Pathogen and Host Contributions to Infectious Colitis
Published on: February 19, 2013
Inflammatory bowel disease. The case for an infectious etiology
1Department of Gastroenterology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.
Abstract:
The infectious hypothesis for IBD is certainly not new. The evidence for an infectious agent is tantalizing but not yet convincing. A failure to demonstrate a specific agent in the inflammatory process could mean that many different organisms are involved, or several organisms that, by themselves, do not cause disease interact. All candidate organisms proposed thus far are compatible with either hypothesis. Nevertheless, interaction between an agent(s) in a host modified by immunologic and genetic factors is still an attractive hypothesis for the cause of these illnesses.
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