Differences in Immunophenotyping of Mucosal Lymphocytes Between Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease

OBJECTIVES: Immunologic studies have characterized the numbers and types of inflammatory cells in diseased inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) mucosa but have yielded conflicting results regarding intestinal lymphocytes activation in IBD. We investigated the levels of lymphocytes subsets, interieukin-2 receptor, transferrin receptor, and T cell receptors in mainly isolated lamina propria lymphocytes, including intraepithelial lymphocytes of normal colonic mucosa or IBD (ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease) mucosa to understand the pathogenesis of IBD. We have results from this study. RESULTS: 1) In comparing ulcerative colitis with control, IL-2R (p<0.05), TR (p<0.01), and CD3/HLA-DR (p<0.05) showed a significant increase. 2) In comparing Crohn’s disease with control, CD3 (p<0.05), TCR α/β (p<0.01) and TCR γ/δ (p<0.05) showed a significant decrease. 3) In comparing Crohn’s disease with ulcerative colitis, CD19 (p<0.01), TR (p< 0.01), TCR α/β (p<0.01) and TCR γ/δ (p<0.05) showed a significant decrease. CONCLUSION: From these results, there are increased T cell markers, IL-2R, TR, and CD3/HLA-DR in UC, but differently, decreased CD3, TCR α/β and TCR γ/δ in CD compared with control. In addition, definitive differences in lymphocytes markers, CD19, TR, TCR α/β and TCR γ/δ, which are higher in UC than in CD, may elucidate the different immunopathogenesis between UC and CD.