A role for bacterial urease in gut dysbiosis and Crohn’s disease

Authors: Josephine Ni, Ting‐Chin David Shen, Eric Z. Chen, Kyle Bittinger, Aubrey Bailey, Manuela Roggiani, Alexandra Sirota‐Madi, Elliot S. Friedman, Lillian Chau, Andrew Lin, Ilana Nissim, Justin Scott, Abigail Lauder, Christian Hoffmann, Gloriany Rivas, Lindsey Albenberg, Robert N. Baldassano, Jonathan Braun, Ramnik J. Xavier, Clary B. Clish, Marc Yudkoff, Hongzhe Li, Mark Goulian, Frederic D. Bushman, James D. Lewis, Gary D. Wu - Science Translational Medicine 2017 cited by 232

engineered to express urease led to dysbiosis of the gut microbiota, resulting in a predominance of Proteobacteria species. This was associated with a worsening of immune-mediated colitis in these animals. A potential role for altered urease expression and nitrogen flux in the development of gut dysbiosis suggests that bacterial urease may be a potential therapeutic target for inflammatory bowel diseases.