Gabriella Lima dos Reis

Stories

Gut antibody IgA acts as a brake on colon cell division, curbing tumors in mice

Graduate student

Roughly one in 500 Americans has little or no immunoglobulin A, the antibody the gut produces in larger quantities than any other. In mice raised in identical cages, that absence more than doubled the number of colon tumors. A Rockefeller University team reported the reason in Nature: IgA normally slows the division of the cells that line the colon.

Updated 2 hours ago