Inflammatory bowel disease: An archetype disorder of outer environment sensor systems

Figure 1 Morbid inflammatory bowel diseases galaxy. As barrier organ dysfunctions (see text) psoriasis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are supposed to overlap with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) insofar as sharing mutations of nucleotide-oligomerization domain 2 (NOD2) genes; the so-called extra-intestinal manifestations of IBD might be mediated by interference with polymorphisms of the cytokine interleukin (IL)-23 or signal transduction systems 4 (STAT4); being not a topic in the present text, they are not further commented.