New International Publication
A new paper entitled "Faecal proteases and immune signatures drive subtype-specific enteric neuronal activation in IBS" has been published in the prestigious journal Gut. The study was led by Dr. Anita Annaházi from the Department, in collaboration with physicians from the Centre of Gastroenterology and Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Szeged, researchers from the Genome Integrity and DNA Repair Team, University of Szeged, as well as German and French collaborators.
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) affects millions of people worldwide, yet there is still no simple diagnostic test to reliably identify the disease, and currently available treatments remain only partially effective. Our study demonstrated that components present in the stool of patients with both diarrhoea-predominant (IBS-D) and constipation-predominant (IBS-C) IBS activate neurons of the gut wall (enteric neurons) more strongly than those from healthy individuals. These findings provide further evidence that IBS is associated with genuine, measurable biological alterations rather than being merely a "functional" disorder. Importantly, we also showed that the two major IBS subtypes differ biologically: in IBS-D protein-degrading enzymes in the stool appear to drive these changes, whereas IBS-C involves different underlying mechanisms. The proteins identified in this study may form the basis of a simple stool-based diagnostic test for IBS-D in the future, while our findings may also contribute to the development of more personalized and targeted therapeutic approaches.
Congratulations to all authors on this outstanding achievement!
New International Publication
With the contribution of researchers from the Department and in collaboration with the Department of Medical Physics and Medical Informatics, our latest study has been published in the prestigious Journal of Applied Physiology under the title "Differential lung injury after permanent and transient focal cerebral ischemia in rats." The first author of the publication is Petra Somogyi, a former PhD student supervised by Dr. Ferenc Peták and Dr. Eszter Farkas, who is currently a researcher at the Department of Medical Physics and Medical Informatics. In this project, we investigated under experimental conditions how the duration of cerebral artery occlusion causing acute ischemic stroke influences secondary lung injury. Our findings provide new evidence that early restoration of blood flow through the occluded cerebral artery may not only reduce brain injury but also attenuate the development of stroke-associated pulmonary complications. Congratulations to all authors on this excellent achievement!
