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IL-10 Beyond Immunosuppression: Unraveling Spatial, Cellular, and Metabolic Mechanisms of Gut Protection

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Intestinal homeostasis requires immune tolerance, barrier integrity, tissue repair, and microbiota mutualism. Interleukin-10 (IL-10) is essential, but not merely as an immunosuppressant. Although IL-10 signals via the IL-10R—JAK1/TYK2—STAT3 axis, its outputs are cell-type and context dependent. In macrophages, IL-10 restrains IL-23 production, inflammasome activation, IL-1β release, and metabolic reprogramming. In T cells, it limits pathogenic T helper 17 cell (Th17) responses while stabilizing regulatory cells and promoting metabolically driven IL-10 production. In the epithelium, IL-10 maintains barrier integrity by limiting apoptosis, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, and mucus defects. IL-10 and the gut microbiota engage in reciprocal regulation: microbial metabolites and structural components enhance IL-10 production and receptor responsiveness, whereas IL-10 signaling preserves microbial diversity and ecological resilience. This may help to explain why systemic recombinant IL-10 failed in Crohn’s disease (CD)—increasing ligand abundance alone is unlikely to recapitulate endogenous localization or restore refractory target cells. Emerging strategies aim to tune IL-10 signaling through gut-selective delivery, engineered cytokines, conditionally activated prodrugs, regulatory cell approaches, and microbiome or metabolic interventions. Clinical translation requires biomarkers of IL-10R expression, STAT3 responsiveness, macrophage metabolic state, microbial signatures, and acquired IL-10 hyporesponsiveness. Despite the established role of IL-10 in intestinal homeostasis, systemic IL-10 therapy has failed in clinical trials, and there is a lack of effective strategies to restore IL-10 signaling in a spatially and cell-specific manner. The spatially organized, metabolically conditioned homeostatic IL-10 signaling—largely inferred from model systems and awaiting direct spatial validation in human intestine—offers a roadmap for more precise therapy in inflammatory bowel disease and related intestinal disorders.

Source: International Journal of Molecular Sciences

DOI: 10.3390/ijms27219472