• As of 2019, about 4.9 million people globally were living with an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) such as Crohn’s disease.
  • Scientists are still unclear as to the exact cause of Crohn’s disease, which is a chronic autoimmune condition.
  • Researchers from the Technical University of Munich report Crohn’s disease may be triggered by mitochondrial disruption causing changes to the gut microbiome, via a mouse model.

As of 2019, about 4.9 million people around the world were living with an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) such as Crohn’s disease.

Crohn’s disease is a chronic autoimmune condition that causes your digestive tract to become inflamed for which there is currently no cure. Researchers are still unclear as to the exact cause of Crohn’s disease.

Now, researchers from the Technical University of Munich are hoping to shed some new light in this area with a new study reporting Crohn’s disease may be triggered through the disruption of the mitochondria, causing changes to the gut microbiome, via a mouse model.

The study was recently published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.

Mitochondrial dysfunction causes intestinal tissue damage

For this study, researchers used a mouse model where a specific gene segment was deleted, disrupting their mitochondrial function. The gene segment removed is responsible for making the protein Hsp60, which is needed to ensure mitochondria perform correctly.

According to the study’s scientists, the mitochondrial disruption caused injuries to the intestinal epithelium — a tissue lining the inside of the intestine — in the mice, consistent with those normally seen in people with Crohn’s disease.

Additionally, researchers reported the microbiome composition changes in the mice due to mitochondrial dysfunction.

Because of this, the scientists report they were able to demonstrate for the first time that disturbances to mitochondria are causally related to tissue damage in the intestines, and also cause disease-related shifts in the gut microbiome.

Potential for new Crohn’s disease treatments

Researchers believe these findings may pave the way for new treatments for Crohn’s disease as medications are mainly limited to alleviating the symptoms of the disease.

“The big hope is to find active ingredients that would restore the functionality of disrupted mitochondria, in other words, to repair them in a sense,” Dirk Haller, PhD, chair of Nutrition and Immunology and director of Corporate Research Institute, Food and Health (ZIEL) at the Technical University of Munich, and lead author of this study says in a press release.

“This would limit intestinal damage as a trigger for chronic inflammation processes. Our results suggest that drugs that act on mitochondrial pathways or address the connections between the microbiome and mitochondria could be a key aspect of better treatments,” Haller adds.

Research in humans needed

After reviewing this study, Rudolph Bedford, MD, a board certified gastroenterologist at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, told Medical News Today Researchers may have found the current cause of Crohn’s disease, and maybe even ulcerative colitis or IBD in general.

“Now