Background: Increased number of intestinal intraepithelial lymphocytes (IELs) is a key histological finding in the diagnosis of celiac disease (CD); however, the number of IELs in celiac patients and healthy subjects may vary from one region to another. Additionally, there are some seronegative celiac patients with a borderline histology. Objective: To determin...

The gut mucosa is continuously exposed to food and microbial antigens. Both enterocytes and intraepithelial lymphocytes have a pivotal role in maintaining the integrity of intestinal mucosa, as these cells guarantee a first line of defense against pathogens and toxic molecules. Enterocytes maintain a physical barrier against microbes and directly contribute to the gut homeostasis by sampling th...

background: an increase in the number of intraepithelial lymphocytes (iel) in the duodenal mucosa is an important criterion for the histological diagnosis of celiac disease (cd). we determined the normal range for intraepithelial lymphocytes (iel) in the second part of duodenum in healthy iranian population. materials and methods: four biopsy samples of the endoscopically normal appearing mucos...

1 Ferguson A, Ziegler K. Intraepithelial lymphocyte mitosis in a jejunal biopsy correlates with intraepithelial lymphocyte count, irrespective of diagnosis. Gut 1986; 27: 675-9. 2 Niazi NM, Leigh RJ, Crowe P, Marsh MN. Morphometric analysis of small intestinal mucosa. I Methodology, epithelial volume compartments and enumeration of inter-epithelial space lymphocytes. Virchows Archiv [Pathol Ana...

Mouse gut intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL), whether thymodependent (CD4+ or CD8 alpha/beta +; TCR-alpha/beta +) or thymoindependent (CD8 alpha/alpha +; TCR-alpha/beta + or -gamma/delta +), all display cytotoxic activity in a "redirected lysis assay" using anti-CD3 or anti-TCR beta or delta chains secreting hybridomas as targets; this is also observed with IEL of germ-free mice, indicating that...

The gut is constantly exposed to a high antigenic load coming from the diet and commensal bacteria. The Gut-Associated Lymphoid Tissue (GALT) constitutes the most extensive and complex part of the immune system and is capable of efficiently distinguishing invasive pathogens from innocuous antigens. The knowledge of its unique structure consisting on organised tissue, inductor of the immune resp...

We have examined cytotoxic responses of lymphocytes derived from the gut epithelium of mice primed systemically and enterically with alloantigens. Both gut intraepithelial (IEL) and splenic lymphocytes from alloantigen-primed mice were found to contain antigen-specific cytotoxic T cell activity. However, after priming, gut IEL also developed high levels of natural killer and spontaneous cytotox...

T cell precursors located in peripheral immune tissues have been studied according to the potential to repopulate the thymus and the gut of lethally irradiated mice. T cell repopulation could be achieved with spleen cells from athymic or euthymic mice thoroughly devoid of mature T cells. Repopulation did not occur with lymph node lymphocytes as determined from studies in congenic mice. The kine...

Abstract Elucidating the relationship between cellular metabolism and T cell function has substantially advanced our understanding of how cells are regulated in response to activation. The metabolic profiles circulating or peripheral have been well-described, yet less is known regarding complex local microenvironments shape modulate bioenergetic profile tissue-resident lymphocytes. Intraepithel...