Title: inflammatory bowel disease
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - inflammatory bowel disease
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.13334
Status: current

Definition
Group of chronic inflammatory conditions resulting in the inappropriate and persistent activation of the mucosal immune system of the bowel.

Notes
1) Idiopathic IBD is a set of chronic conditions probably driven by the presence of normal intestinal flora.
2) Autoantibodies against proteins of neutrophil granulocytes, pancreatic acinus, intestinal goblet, and colonic epithelial cells are detectable.
3) Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis are two variants of IBD with overlapping clinical manifestations and probable autoimmune origins. Crohn disease is immunologically characterized by antibody to Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Th1 cell-dominated responses.

Related Terms
- Autoantibodies: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/12913
- Crohn disease: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13053
- Idiopathic: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13249
- Th1 cell: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13718
- autoimmune: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/12918
- immune system: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13271
- mucosal: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13473
- neutrophil: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13510

Source
- PAC, 2012, 84, 1113. 'IUPAC glossary of terms used in immunotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)' on page 1194 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-11-06-03)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13334/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13334/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13334/xml

Citation: Citation: 'inflammatory bowel disease' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.13334
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Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-06-30T18:10:15+00:00