Aberrant mucin assembly in mice causes endoplasmic reticulum stress and spontaneous inflammation resembling ulcerative colitis

Journal article

Background: MUC2 mucin produced by intestinal goblet cells is the major component of the intestinal mucus barrier. The inflammatory bowel disease ulcerative colitis is characterized by depleted goblet cells and a reduced mucus layer, but the aetiology remains obscure. In this study we used random mutagenesis to produce two murine models of inflammatory bowel disease, characterised the basis and nature of the inflammation in these mice, and compared the pathology with human ulcerative colitis....

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Authors: Heazlewood, C; Cook, M; Eri, R; Price, G; Tauro, S

• Journal: PLoS Medicine
• Volume: 5
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 0440-0460
• Publication date: 2008-03-01
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0050054
• EISSN: 1549-1676
• ISSN: 1549-1277
• Language: English