Inflammatory diseases linked to fungi.

• Position: Digestion

Examination of the fungi in the intestines suggests an important link between these microbes and inflammatory diseases such as ulcerative colitis, assert researchers at the Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, Calif., who identified and characterized the community of fungi inhabiting the large intestine in a model of the disease.

The digestive tract is home to a huge number of microorganisms. In fact, with an estimated 100 trillion bacteria residing in the gut, microbes outnumber human cells in the body. Some are necessary to aid in digesting food, producing necessary vitamins, and suppressing the growth of harmful microbes. Others contribute to illnesses such as Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and obesity. DNA-sequencing technology has revolutionized the study of these microbes.

"Its long been recognized that fungi must also exist in the gut, but we're among the first to investigate what types, how many, and whether they're important in disease," relates David Underhill, associate professor and director of the Graduate Program in Biomedical Science and Translational...