Increased epithelial uptake of protein antigens in the ileum of Crohn’s disease mediated by tumour necrosis factor α
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The exact nature of the epithelial barrier defect in Crohn's disease remains to be elucidated. Previously we showed increased permeability to proteins in ileal Crohn's disease. Our aims were to study if this barrier defect (a) involves endocytotic uptake of antigens and (b) is related to low grade inflammation not detectable by histology. METHODS: Macroscopically normal segments of distal ileum of Crohn's disease patients (n = 10) were subgrouped into non-inflamed (histologically unaffected) and slightly inflamed tissues and studied in Ussing chambers, with normal ileal specimens from colon cancer patients (n = 9) as controls. Endocytotic uptake into enterocytes of the protein antigen horseradish peroxidase was assessed by measuring the area of horseradish peroxidase containing endosomes in electron photomicrographs. Mucosal tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) mRNA was quantified using real time polymerase chain reaction. For comparison, the effects of low doses of TNF-alpha on endosomal uptake of horseradish peroxidase were studied in cultured T84 cells grown on filter supports. RESULTS: The area of horseradish peroxidase containing endosomes was increased (p<0.001) in enterocytes of non-inflamed ileum of Crohn's disease (2.8 (0.7) mum(2)/300 mum(2)) compared with control ileum (0.6 (0.06)). In non-inflamed mucosa, a significant association between endosomal uptake and mucosal expression of TNF-alpha mRNA (p = 0.03) was found. Low concentrations of TNF-alpha (0.25-1.0 ng/ml) enhanced the endosomal uptake of horseradish peroxidase in polarised T84 cells, without affecting transepithelial electrical resistance. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest increased endosomal uptake of antigens in ileal Crohn's disease that may be mediated by TNF-alpha. These data highlight the transcellular route of antigen uptake in barrier dysfunction and implicate the interaction between epithelial cells and the innate immune system in the development of mucosal inflammation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".