Nathalie Vergnolle

The overall goal of the team "Pathophysiology of the intestinal epithelium" is to understand the mechanisms of diseases associated with dysfunctions of the intestinal epithelium: Chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), colorectal cancer (CRC) and infections.The research team has expertise on the biology of the intestinal mucosa and in particular its barrier functions, secretory functions, absorptive functions, regeneration as well as host-microbiota/pathogen interaction and neurally-controlled sensory, secretory and motility functions. The roles of the proteolytic balance of the mucosa in the intestinal physiology and pathologies are more particularly studied. Some proteases have been shown to be dysregulated in different pathophysiological contexts and are now deeply studied in order to clarify their functions in pathogenesis.

The implication of protease-activated receptors (PARs) in digestive pathologies is an important axis of investigations in our team. Another point of view developed by our team is how gender may influence pathologies generated by alterations in the intestinal crypt. Finally, the team is also interested in the immunity-mediated dialogue between colic primary tumor and metastasis. Important links with private companies are established in order to develop therapeutic molecules against the pathophysiology – associated proteases.

​Part of the team has emerged as  an independent research group entitled "Interaction between the environment and the intestinal epithelium" under the co-direction of Audrey Ferrand and Frederik Barreau.