Interestingly, significant evidence suggests that ALCAM participates in the initiation of inflammatory responses regardless of the subtypes of inflammation, such as Th1/17 mediated inflammatory bowel diseases, multiple sclerosis and Th2 mediated asthma or atopic dermatitis (21, 22, 30, 41), which implicates the conserved role of ALCAM for enriching pathogenic T cells in the lesions. Here, ALCAM is linked to inflammatory bowel disease.