Celiac disease can start with a virus
Intestinal reovirus makes the immune system intolerant to gluten proteins
Kirill Stasevich, "Science and Life"
Celiac disease, or gluten disease, is called intestinal intolerance to gluten – vegetable proteins from cereal grains.
Once in the intestine, gluten provokes a specific immune response, so that as a result, the immune system begins to attack intestinal tissues. As a result, the intestines begin to work poorly, the absorption of nutrients is disrupted, and soon it becomes bad not only for the intestines, but also for the whole body. Gluten disease cannot be called rare: for example, in the USA it is found in one person out of one hundred and thirty-three, and moreover it is believed that statistics cover only 17% of those who really suffer from celiac disease.
It is known that gluten disease has genetic causes. Immune cells "probe" the environment with the help of special receptors that bind to certain molecules, and it happens that one of the receptors binds gluten proteins too tightly. And because of this too strong connection, immune cells receive too strong a signal, and as a result, overheated immune cells begin to attack "their own", that is, they begin an autoimmune process. In healthy people, gluten can also slightly irritate the immune system, but just that slightly; if a person has a gene of a "particularly diligent" version of the receptor in the genome, it means that his immune response to gluten is likely to get out of control.
But the immune system consists of a huge number of cells and signaling molecules, including inflammatory ones, and in the case of gluten intolerance, it is still not entirely clear where it all starts and what signaling intermediaries are involved here. The receptor alone is not enough here, there must be additional factors. One of these factors may be intestinal reovirus – it is with it, according to researchers from the University of Chicago, that celiac disease begins (see the press release of Seemingly innocent virus can trigger celiac disease).
Normally, reoviruses are harmless, they live in the intestines, without provoking immunity to large-scale "military actions". However, like all viruses, they are very variable, and it turned out that one of the strains of the human reovirus, if transplanted into mice, provokes a strong immune response in the intestine and at the same time rewards the animal with gluten intolerance (despite the fact that another strain of the virus, genetically very close to the pathogen, does nothing of the kind).
In an article in Science (Bouziat et al., Reovirus infection triggers inflammatory responses to dietary antigens and development of celiac disease) the authors write that people with celiac disease have increased levels of antibodies against reoviruses and increased activity of the immune gene, which plays a major role in gluten problems. Obviously, the reaction to the virus is closely related to the anti-gluten reaction, but how exactly reoviruses irritate the immune system and why only specific strains of them are capable of this remains to be seen.
In people with a genetic predisposition, the virus works as a trigger, and everything begins, most likely, from early childhood, when the immune system is still being formed and cannot develop an adequate attitude to some guests living in the intestine – including reoviruses.
Perhaps some vaccines against reoviruses could be a real salvation for people with gluten disease, but first you need to find out in more detail what molecular and cellular mechanisms link the virus and the immune response to gluten.
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13.04.2017