Claudin-2: A marker for a better evaluation of histological mucosal healing in inflammatory bowel diseases

Abstract

Background: Histological mucosal healing has become a paramount target goal to achieve in the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases. However, there is still a lack of agreement on the best way to reach this goal, since numerous histological scores are available worldwide.

Aims: We investigated whether claudin-2, a member of claudin family involved in the regulation of intestinal tight junctions, might be useful to assess the presence of active disease in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases.

Methods: Biopsies from 123 patients with ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, infectious colitides and irritable bowel syndrome patients where tested with immunohistochemistry for claudin-2.

Results: Claudin-2 appeared to be a very sensitive marker of disease activity in inflammatory bowel diseases, but was negative in the other kinds of patients. In addition, immunohistochemistry for claudin-2 showed good reproducibility by different pathologists.

Conclusions: Should these findings be confirmed in more numerous cohorts of patients, and especially in those with minimal or focal residual disease activity, this simple assessment could be useful in the routine daily practice to facilitate the task of pathologists and clinicians in the diagnosis and management of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases.

Keywords: Claudin-2; Crohn's disease; IBD; Mucosal healing; Tight junction proteins; Ulcerative colitis.