Papers of the Week

Mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs). To understand how microbial-metabolic circuits contribute to intestinal injury, we disrupt mitochondrial function in the epithelium by deleting the mitochondrial chaperone, heat shock protein 60 (Hsp60). This metabolic perturbation causes self-resolving tissue injury. Regeneration is disrupted in the absence of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (Hsp60;AhR) involved in intestinal homeostasis or inflammatory regulator interleukin (IL)-10 (Hsp60;Il10), causing IBD-like pathology. Injury is absent in the distal colon of germ-free (GF) Hsp60 mice, highlighting bacterial control of metabolic injury. Colonizing GF Hsp60 mice with the synthetic community OMM reveals expansion of metabolically flexible Bacteroides, and B. caecimuris mono-colonization recapitulates the injury. Transcriptional profiling of the metabolically impaired epithelium reveals gene signatures involved in oxidative stress (Ido1, Nos2, Duox2). These signatures are observed in samples from Crohn’s disease patients, distinguishing active from inactive inflammation. Thus, mitochondrial perturbation of the epithelium causes microbiota-dependent injury with discriminative inflammatory gene profiles relevant for IBD.