Effect of Anti-TNF Therapy on Mucosal Apoptosis Genes Expression in Crohn's Disease.

Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic immune-mediated disorder for which there is not a fully effective treatment. Moreover, biological therapy with anti-tumor necrosis factor-α (anti-TNF-α) monoclonal antibodies leads to an effective response in only 60-70% of patients. Our previous data suggested that specific polymorphism of the , and genes could be a predictor of the primary non-response to anti-TNF therapy in CD patients. In this work, we propose to explain this hypothesis by functional analysis in colon biopsies and in a cell culture model. Using the RT-qPCR analysis, we estimated the , and genes mRNA level in colon biopsies material from inflamed and non-inflamed tissue from 21 CD patients (14 responders and 7 non-responders to anti-TNF therapy) and 6 controls, as well as in a peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 14 CD patients (seven responders and seven non-responders to anti-TNF therapy) and eight controls cultured for 72 h with 10 μg/ml of anti-TNF antibody. Our findings demonstrated a significant down-regulation of gene expression in non-responders both in inflamed and in non-inflamed colon tissue, while the expression of the and genes was significantly up-regulated in non-responders in the inflamed colon region. research results indicate that the anti-TNF drug induced a significant decrease in , and gene expression in non-responders. These results show that altered , and genes expression can be a predictor of the primary non-response to anti-TNF therapy in CD patients.