Camprubí-Font Carla, Martinez-Medina Margarita
Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology, Department of Biology, University of Girona, Girona 17003, Spain.
World J Biol Chem. 2020 Apr 7;11(1):1-13. doi: 10.4331/wjbc.v11.i1.1.
Adherent-invasive (AIEC) strains have been extensively related to Crohn's disease (CD) etiopathogenesis. Higher AIEC prevalence in CD patients versus controls has been reported, and its mechanisms of pathogenicity have been linked to CD physiopathology. In CD, the therapeutic armamentarium remains limited and non-curative; hence, the necessity to better understand AIEC as a putative instigator or propagator of the disease is certain. Nonetheless, AIEC identification is currently challenging because it relies on phenotypic assays based on infected cell cultures which are highly time-consuming, laborious and non-standardizable. To address this issue, AIEC molecular mechanisms and virulence genes have been studied; however, a specific and widely distributed genetic AIEC marker is still missing. The finding of molecular tools to easily identify AIEC could be useful in the identification of AIEC carriers who could profit from personalized treatment. Also, it would significantly promote AIEC epidemiological studies. Here, we reviewed the existing data regarding AIEC genetics and presented those molecular markers that could assist with AIEC identification. Finally, we highlighted the problems behind the discovery of exclusive AIEC biomarkers and proposed strategies to facilitate the search of AIEC signature sequences.
粘附侵袭性（AIEC）菌株与克罗恩病（CD）的病因发病机制密切相关。已有报道称，与对照组相比，CD患者中AIEC的患病率更高，其致病机制与CD的生理病理学相关。在CD中，治疗手段仍然有限且无法治愈；因此，有必要更好地了解AIEC作为该疾病的潜在引发者或传播者。尽管如此，目前AIEC的鉴定具有挑战性，因为它依赖于基于感染细胞培养的表型分析，这种分析非常耗时、费力且不可标准化。为了解决这个问题，人们对AIEC的分子机制和毒力基因进行了研究；然而，仍然缺少一种特异性且广泛分布的AIEC基因标记。找到能够轻松鉴定AIEC的分子工具，可能有助于识别那些能够从个性化治疗中获益的AIEC携带者。此外，这将显著促进AIEC的流行病学研究。在此，我们回顾了有关AIEC遗传学的现有数据，并介绍了有助于AIEC鉴定的分子标记。最后，我们强调了发现AIEC特异性生物标志物背后的问题，并提出了促进寻找AIEC特征序列的策略。
