Figure 2.

Mechanism of oxazolone colitis. Oxazolone colitis is driven by natural killer T (NKT) cells that originate in the cytokine milieu of epithelial cells subjected to damage by oxazolone as well as hematopoietic cells in the lamina propria. As shown in the figure, the NKT cells are activated by glycolipids presented to them in the context of CD1 and then mediate toxicity via their direct cytotoxic activity directed at target epithelial cells bearing glycolipid antigen. Alternatively, the NKT cells mediate tissue damage via their production of interleukin-13, a cytokine that has been shown to affect tight junction proteins and to thereby affect epithelial barrier function.