Potential role of MALT1 as a candidate biomarker of disease surveillance and treatment response prediction in inflammatory bowel disease patients

BACKGROUND: Mucosa‐associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma translocation protein 1 (MALT1) regulates adaptive and innate immune responses in several inflammatory disease. However, clinical involvement of MALT1 in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients remains unclear. Hence, this study was intended to investigate the correlation of blood MALT1 with disease activity, inflammation indexes as well as treatment response of IBD patients. METHODS: Blood MALT1 expression in 100 IBD patients [including 25 active (A)‐Crohn's disease (CD) patients, 25 remission (R)‐CD patients, 25 A‐ulcerative colitis (UC) patients, and 25 R‐UC patients] and 25 health controls (HCs) was detected by reverse transcription‐quantitative polymerase chain reaction; besides, serum tumor necrosis factor‐alpha (TNF‐α) and interleukin‐17A (IL‐17A) in IBD patients were detected by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTS: MALT1 was increased in A‐UC patients than in R‐UC patients (p = 0.038) and in HCs (p < 0.001), and also elevated in A‐CD patients than in R‐CD patients (p = 0.048) and in HCs (p < 0.001). MALT1 was positively related to C‐reactive protein (CRP, p = 0.011), TNF‐α (p = 0.036), IL‐17A (p = 0.023), and Mayo score (p = 0.005) in A‐UC patients, CRP (p = 0.017), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (p = 0.033), TNF‐α (p = 0.004), and Crohn's disease activity index score (p = 0.028) in A‐CD patients. But MALT1 was not correlated with either inflammation indexes or disease activity score in R‐UC and R‐CD patients. MALT1 gradually declined from baseline to W12 in A‐UC and A‐CD patients (both p < 0.001). Moreover, MALT1 at W4 (p = 0.031) and W12 (p = 0.003) in A‐UC patients as well as MALT1 at W12 (p = 0.008) in A‐CD patients associated with clinical response. CONCLUSION: MALT1 serves as a potential biomarker for disease surveillance and treatment response prediction of IBD patients.