Intestinal Cellular Biomarkers of Mucosal Lesion Progression in Pediatric Celiac Disease
Serena Vitale,
Mariantonia Maglio,
Stefania Picascia,
Ilaria Mottola,
Erasmo Miele,
Riccardo Troncone,
Renata Auricchio,
Carmen Gianfrani
Affiliations
Serena Vitale
Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology-CNR, 80131 Naples, Italy
Mariantonia Maglio
Department of Translational Medicine & European Laboratory for the Investigation of Food-Induced Diseases, University Federico II, Via S. Pansini 5, 80131 Naples, Italy
Stefania Picascia
Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology-CNR, 80131 Naples, Italy
Ilaria Mottola
Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology-CNR, 80131 Naples, Italy
Erasmo Miele
Department of Translational Medicine & European Laboratory for the Investigation of Food-Induced Diseases, University Federico II, Via S. Pansini 5, 80131 Naples, Italy
Riccardo Troncone
Department of Translational Medicine & European Laboratory for the Investigation of Food-Induced Diseases, University Federico II, Via S. Pansini 5, 80131 Naples, Italy
Renata Auricchio
Department of Translational Medicine & European Laboratory for the Investigation of Food-Induced Diseases, University Federico II, Via S. Pansini 5, 80131 Naples, Italy
Carmen Gianfrani
Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology-CNR, 80131 Naples, Italy
Celiac disease (CD) is a chronic intestinal inflammation caused by gluten ingestion in genetically predisposed individuals. Overt-CD and potential-CD are the two main forms of gluten intolerance in pediatric patients with different grades of intestinal mucosa lesion and clinical management. For overt-CD patients the gluten-free diet is mandatory, while for potential-CD the dietary therapy is recommended only for those subjects becoming clinically symptomatic overtime. To date, specific early biomarkers of evolution to villous atrophy in potential-CD are lacking. We recently observed an expansion of TCRγδ+ T cells and a concomitant disappearance of IL4-producing T cells in the intestinal mucosa of overt-CD patients compared to potential-CD children, suggesting the involvement of these two cells subsets in the transition from potential-CD to overt-CD. In this study, we demonstrated that the intestinal densities of IL4+ T cells inversely correlated with TCRγδ+ T cell expansion (p p p p p p < 0.0006). These findings strongly suggest that the detection of TCRγδ+ and IL4+ T cells could serve as cellular biomarkers of mucosal lesion and targets of novel immunomodulatory therapies for CD.