INSL5 as a newly recognised potential contributor to diarrhoea pathogenesis: more questions than answers

Abstract

The pathogenesis of chronic diarrhoeal diseases remains incompletely understood, so it is exciting when novel mechanistic insights emerge. In their recent Gut publication, Bannon et al 1 report a large elevation of the promotility enteroendocrine hormone insulin-like peptide 5 (INSL5) in the serum of patients with bile salt diarrhoea (BSD) and in a subset of patients with Irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhoea (IBS-D) without overt bile salt malabsorption, using a modified liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry assay with increased sensitivity that they developed. This finding opens a new direction into …