Intestinal interleukin-13 in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease patients.
BACKGROUND
Interleukin-13 (IL-13) is a multifunctional cytokine whose net principle action is to diminish inflammatory responses. Dysregulation of IL-13 production has been proposed to contribute to intestinal inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients. Previous studies implicate IL-13 in IBD pathogenesis; however, they fail to accurately reflect in vivo intestinal IL-13 production. We evaluate IL-13, IL-6, and IL-1beta elaborations from colonic organ cultures of pediatric IBD patients


METHODS
Endoscopic lamina propria biopsies or surgical specimens from pediatric patients with IBD were organ cultured and supernatants evaluated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for IL-1beta, IL-6, and IL-13.


RESULTS
IL-13 concentrations were significantly reduced in ulcerative colitis (UC) patients when compared with normal controls (P = 0.002) and Crohn disease (CD) patients (P = 0.001). End-stage UC patients at colectomy had lower intestinal IL-13 production than all other UC patients (P = 0.002). No significant correlation was found between IL-13 concentration and histologic disease severity (P = 0.134).


CONCLUSIONS
Diminished intestinal IL-13 production is present in UC patients and wanes further with clinical disease progression. These findings suggest that UC patients may be differentiated from CD patients by intestinal IL-13 quantitation, and UC patients may benefit from IL-13 enhancing therapies.
Kadivar
Khadijeh
K
Division of Gastroenterology & Nutrition, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Ruchelli
Eduardo D
ED
Markowitz
Jonathan E
JE
Defelice
Magee L
ML
Strogatz
Melissa L
ML
Kanzaria
Mitul M
MM
Reddy
Krishna P
KP
Baldassano
Robert N
RN
von Allmen
Daniel
D
Brown
Kurt A
KA
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D018450:Disease Progression; D004724:Endoscopy; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000276:immunology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D018793:Interleukin-13 / Q000032:analysis* / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008297:Male
D018793:Interleukin-13