T-CELL TRANSFER AND CYTOKINE TCR GENE DELETION MODELS IN THE STUDY OFINFLAMMATORY BOWEL-DISEASE/

Until recently there existed no appropriate immunological animal model s for human inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Today a number of model s, mostly in the mouse and rat, have proved useful in the study of sev eral aspects of IBD, including the histopathology and the disease-indu ctive and -protective cell types, subsets and cytokines, for example C D4(+) T cells, IFN gamma, IL-12, IL-2, IL-10 and TGF beta. Furthermore , these recent IBD models make it possible to examine various chemo-an d immunotherapeutic approaches. This review focuses on IBD development in adoptive T-cell transfer models and in gene-deleted mice.