Interleukin-10 in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

In this issue of the Journal, Glocker et al.1 provide the first substantial support for a functional role for the immunosuppressive cytokine interleukin-10 in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease in humans. By performing genetic-linkage and candidate-gene analysis of two unrelated consanguineous families with children who have a severe, progressive, poorly treatable form of Crohn's disease that occurs in the first year of life, the investigators identified homozygous, recessive loss-of-function mutations in the interleukin-10 receptor genes, IL10RA and IL10RB, which most likely contributed to the patients' disease. A third distinct mutation in IL10RA was found in an unrelated patient. Finally, . . .