Differential expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines, apoptosis and autophagy activation in intestinal and mesenteric fat tissues in Crohn's disease

Abstract

Crohn's disease is a chronic intestinal ailment with a multifactorial etiology, whose incidence has increased during the last three decades. Indeed, Crohn's disease is associated with the expression of many genes and with complex pathways involving defective inflammatory, regarding innate immunity, apoptosis and autophagy pathways. More recently, the role of mesenteric fat has been associated with Crohn's disease etiopathology, since hypertrophy has been related near the intestinal area affected; however, there are few studies on this aspect. In the present project our goal is to evaluate inflammatory, apoptotic and autophagy activity in intestinal and mesenteric fat of patients with Crohn's disease and controls. To reach this objective, ten patients with ileocecal Crohn's disease (DC Group), and ten patients with megacolon (C1 Group) who will be underwent to surgery, and ten patients with normal ileocolonoscopy (C2 Group) will be studied. The expression of the following proteins will be available: TNF-α, IL1-b, IL-6, IL-8, IL-17, IL-23, IFN-g, IL-10, SOCS-3, TLR-4, F4/80, STAT-1, NF-KB, apoptosis proteins (Bax e Bcl-2) and autophagy proteins (ATG16L1, beclin-1 e LC3). Therefore, the molecular research could identify specific tissue differences, which may be involved with diseases susceptibility, and could constitute pharmacological targets for individual therapeutics. (AU)