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Simone Maccaferri, Beatrice Vitali, Annett Klinder, Patrizia Brigidi, Adele Costabile, Rifaximin modulates the colonic microbiota of patients with Crohn's disease: an in vitro approach using a continuous culture colonic model system—authors’ response, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Volume 66, Issue 5, May 2011, Pages 1194–1195, https://doi.org/10.1093/jac/dkr080
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Sir,
We read with interest the comment by Cianci et al.,1 referring to our recent publication in JAC.2
Cianci et al.1 state that we cited their recent work3 incorrectly. We appreciate the importance of the research of Cianci et al.3 on gut-homing T cells for the understanding of inflammatory conditions in the bowel. Further, we regret that in our sentence concerning ‘alternative mechanisms of action’ of rifaximin, including ‘(iii) reduction of inflammatory cytokine release’, we did not expand on the complexity of the involvement of the immune system. We are grateful for the detailed explanation and clarification by Cianci et al.1 regarding their article3 that we referred to.
We would like to emphasize that it was our intention to discuss how the therapeutic efficacy of the antibiotic rifaximin can be explained by different mechanisms of action other than the mere bactericidal effect. The latter has been reported in several publications over the last 2 years. In this context, it is important to note that beyond its antimicrobial activity rifaximin modulates the immune response. Discussing this aspect, we reported references by Brown et al.,4 Vitali et al.5 and Cianci et al.3
