Recent microorganism studies have shown that intestine microbiota control the life phenomenon not only in intestines but also in other tissues such as the lungs, liver, brain and bone marrow. However, there have been no ideas of how intestine microbial signals were transmitted to the whole body or how they produced immune cells yet. Professor Lee Seung-woo (LIFE) and his research team have discovered the mechanism of how intestine microbiota transmit signals to the whole body and how they control the haematopoiesis of the bone marrow.
The research team noted that intestine microbiota control the immunity of the body by controlling the haematopoiesis of the bone marrow which creates white blood cells. They discovered that through the bloodstream, microbial signals containing intestine bacterial DNA (bDNA) are transmitted into the bone marrow and are recognized by CX3CR1+ mononuclear phagocytes in the bone marrow.
The research team explained that CX3CR1+ mononuclear phagocytes that recognized microbial signals secrete cytokine, a signal substance that controls and stimulates the body’s immune system, and cytokine produces blood cells by controlling the number of haematopoietic progenitors or by promoting differentiation into the myeloid cells. These CX3CR1+ mononuclear phagocytes are in contact with haematopoietic progenitors and  act like a traffic light accepting microbial signals.
Prof. Lee said, “Intestine microbial signal transport pathway will be able to be applied to control other tissues’ immune response or to treat cancer and inflammatory diseases.”
The achievement of Prof. Lee was announced by Blood, a journal of the American Society of Hematology.