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A new syndrome, termed “cord colitis,” has been described in patients who have undergone umbilical-cord allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (cord-HSCT). The condition is characterized by frequent, nonbloody diarrhea and histopathological evidence of chronic active colitis with epitheloid granulomas, but no evidence of known microbial pathogens, viral cytopathic changes, or graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Because several patients with this syndrome showed a response to antimicrobial therapy, researchers suspected that an infectious agent might be to blame.
The researchers performed shotgun sequencing of DNA extracted from 4 archived colon-biopsy specimens from 2 patients with cord colitis and used iterative computational anal…