Two ethnic Korean scientists in the United States have identified how colonic inflammation causes serious pain.

Dr. Rhee Sang-hoon and wife Im Eun-ok of Harvard Medical School on Wednesday said they confirmed through experiments on mice that flagellin released by microbes in the human gut irritates protein under colonic epithelium, causing inflammation.

Their research has found the physiological mechanism on how colonic microbes cause inflammation, and is expected to help prevent or cure colonic inflammation.

The results of their study are posted on the homepage of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.