Oral Campylobacter species: Initiators of a subgroup of inflammatory bowel disease?

In recent years, a number of studies detected a significantly higher prevalence of Campylobacter species such as Campylobacter concisus (C. concisus) in intestinal biopsies and fecal samples collected from patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) compared to controls. Most of these Campylobacter species are not of zoonotic origin but are human oral Campylobacter species. Bacterial species usually cause diseases in the location where they colonize. However, C. concisus and other oral Campylobacter species are associated with IBD occurring at the lower parts of the gastrointestinal tract, suggesting that these Campylobacter species may have unique virulence factors that are expressed in the lower parts of the gastrointestinal tract.