Â鶹´«Ã½

News — LOS ANGELES (April 9, 2025) -- A new Cedars-Sinai study demonstrates how gut bacteria can influence the development of blood vessel inflammation in laboratory mice. The findings, if confirmed in humans, would open a potential route for treating Kawasaki disease, a mysterious childhood disorder characterized by vascular inflammation.

“Kawasaki disease, although rare, is the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children globally,” said , associate director of the Infectious and Immunological Diseases Research Center in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Cedars-Sinai and corresponding author of the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal . “Unfortunately, about 20% of the patients do not respond to intravenous immunoglobulin, which is the standard therapy. We urgently need alternative or additional treatments.”

Kawasaki disease affects 18 to 25 per 100,000 children under 5 years old in the United States. It typically begins with a fever and vasculitis, a type of blood vessel inflammation, and may involve gastrointestinal and other symptoms. If left untreated, Kawasaki disease can lead to coronary artery aneurysms in up to 25% of affected children.

The new study addresses a critical gap in knowledge about how Kawasaki disease develops. Previous research involving children with the disorder found changes in the composition of their gut microbiota, the trillions of bacteria that inhabit the intestines. But whether these changes precede or worsen Kawasaki disease had not been established.  

“To explore this process, we used a mouse model that recapitulates the vasculitis observed in Kawasaki disease patients,” Noval Rivas said. “We then examined the effects of altering the gut microbiota in the mice.”

Investigators found that depleting the gut microbiota decreased the development of Kawasaki vasculitis in mice. In addition, supplementing the microbiota with inflammation-inducing bacteria tended to worsen the vasculitis, and adding beneficial bacteria or their byproducts significantly reduced it.

“This study reveals an underappreciated link between gut microbiota and cardiovascular inflammation in Kawasaki disease vasculitis and identifies specific bacteria that regulate it in mice,” said , senior author of the study and executive vice chair of the Department of Pediatrics for Research at . “This discovery raises the possibility that targeting gut bacteria could be a new way to prevent or treat Kawasaki disease.”

Arditi added that more research is needed to confirm these findings in children and ensure that such therapies would be safe and effective.

Other Cedars-Sinai authors include: Prasant K. Jena, Daiko Wakita, Angela C. Gomez, Thacyana T. Carvalho, Asli E. Atici, Emily Aubuchon, Meena Narayanan, Youngho Lee, David M. Underhill, Suzanne Devkota, Shuang Chen, Kenichi Shimada and Timothy R. Crother.

Other authors include: Michael C. Fishbein, Yoshihiro Takasato, Yosuke Kurashima, Hiroshi Kiyono, Patrice D. Cani and Willem M. de Vos.

Funding: M. Noval Rivas is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants R01::HL139766 and R01 HL159297. M. Arditi is supported by the NIH grants R01 HL170580 and NIH R01 HL149972. M. Arditi and M. Noval Rivas are supported by the NIH AI157274 grant. P.D. Cani is an honorary research director at FRS-Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) and recipient of grants from FNRS (FRFS-WELBIO: WELBIO-CR-2022A-02 and FNRS-FWO: EOS: program no. 40007505).

Disclosures: W.M. de Vos and P.D. Cani are inventors of patent applications dealing with the use of specific bacteria and components in the treatment of different diseases. W.M. de Vos and P.D. Cani have cofounded The Akkermansia Company SA, which is commercializing Akkermansia muciniphila, and have stocks in this startup company. W.M. de Vos cofounded Caelus Health. P.D. Cani cofounded Enterosys. The other authors report no conflicts.

Follow  on LinkedIn for more on the latest basic science and clinical research from Cedars-Sinai