INTRODUCTION Crohn’s disease (CD) progression is marked by the occurrence of stricturing complications or intestinal and perianal penetrating complications, typically requiring surgery. 2 We previously reported three factors at the time of diagnosis that increased the chance of disabling disease during the 5 years following: (1) age <40 years old, (2) presence of perianal lesions and (3) the re...

Adherent-invasive Escherichia coli (AIEC) strains are genetically variable and virulence factors for AIEC are non-specific. FimH is the most studied pathogenicity-related protein, and there have been few studies on other proteins, such as Serine Protease Autotransporters of Enterobacteriacea (SPATEs). The goal of this study is to characterize E. coli strains isolated from patients with Crohn's ...

INTRODUCTION Recently, it has been suggested an association between red cell distribution width (RDW) and Crohn's disease activity index (CDAI), but its use is not yet performed in daily clinical practice. OBJECTIVES To determine whether RDW can be used as a marker of Crohn's disease (CD) activity. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study including patients with CD, observed consecutively i...

Intestinal APCs are considered critical in maintaining the balance between the response against harmful pathogens and the induction of tolerance to commensal bacteria and food Ags. Recently, several studies indicated the presence of gut-specific APC subsets, which possess both macrophage and dendritic cell (DC) markers. These unique APC subsets play important roles in gut immunity, especially f...

Arginine vasopressin (AVP) is essential for maintaining body fluid homeostasis. The antidiuretic effects of AVP are initialized by binding of AVP to the type-2 vasopressin receptor (V2R) in the kidney collecting duct (CD), resulting in the exocytic insertion of aquaporin-2 (AQP-2) water channels into the apical plasma membrane. In this study, we describe the generation and characterization of a...

BACKGROUND Anti-glycan antibody serologic markers may serve as a useful adjunct in the diagnosis/prognosis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). This meta-analysis/systemic review aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value, as well as the association of anti-glycan biomarkers with IBD susceptible gene variants, disease complications, and th...

BACKGROUND Polymorphisms in the μ-, δ- and κ-opioid receptor genes (OPRM1, OPRD1 and OPRK1) have been reported to be associated with substance (alcohol or drug) dependence. The influence of an individual gene on a disease trait should be more evident when analyzed in the context of gene-gene interactions. Thus, we assessed the joint effect of variants in these three opioid receptor genes on alc...

BACKGROUND Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has highlighted the effects of chronic cocaine exposure on cerebral structures and functions, and implicated the prefrontal cortices in deficits of cognitive control. Recent investigations suggest power spectrum scale invariance (PSSI) of cerebral blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signals as a neural marker of cerebral activity. We examined her...

BACKGROUND Chronic exposure to low cadmium (Cd) levels produces urinary excretion of low molecular weight proteins, which is considered the critical effect of Cd exposure. However, the mechanisms involved in Cd-induced proteinuria are not entirely clear. Therefore, the present study was designed to evaluate the possible role of megalin and cubilin (important endocytic receptors in proximal tubu...