Dendritic cell profiles in the inflamed colonic mucosa predict the responses to tumor necrosis factor alpha inhibitors in inflammatory bowel disease
Article Category: Research Article
Published Online: Nov 26, 2018
Page range: 443 - 452
Received: Sep 12, 2018
Accepted: Oct 25, 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/raon-2018-0045
© 2018 Natasa Smrekar, David Drobne, Lojze M. Smid, Ivan Ferkolj, Borut Stabuc, Alojz Ihan, Andreja Natasa Kopitar, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Background
Dendritic cells play crucial roles in the control of inflammation and immune tolerance in the gut. We aimed to investigate the effects of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFa) inhibitors on intestinal dendritic cells in patients with inflammatory bowel disease and the potential role of intestinal dendritic cells in predicting the response to treatment.
Patients and methods
Intestinal biopsies were obtained from 30 patients with inflammatory bowel disease before and after treatment with TNFa inhibitors. The proportions of
Results
At baseline, the proportion of conventional dendritic cells was higher in the inflamed mucosa (7.8%) compared to the uninflamed mucosa (4.5%) (p = 0.003), and the proportion of CD103+ dendritic cells was lower in the inflamed mucosa (47.1%) versus the uninflamed mucosa (57.3%) (p = 0.03). After 12 weeks of treatment, the proportion of conventional dendritic cells in the inflamed mucosa decreased from 7.8% to 4.5% (p = 0.014), whereas the proportion of CD103+ dendritic cells remained unchanged. Eighteen out of 30 (60%) patients responded to their treatment by week 12. Responders had a significantly higher proportion of conventional dendritic cells (9.16%
Conclusions
A proportion of conventional dendritic cells above 7% in the inflamed inflammatory bowel disease mucosa before treatment predicts an endoscopic response to TNFa inhibitors.