Expression analysis in intestinal mucosa of genes under association peaks in celiac disease

Celiac disease is a chronic immune-mediated disorder with an important genetic component. To date, there are 57 independent association signals from 39 non-HLA loci, and a total of 66 candidate genes have been proposed. We aimed to scrutinize the functional implication of 45 of those genes by analyzing their expression in the disease tissue of celiac patients (at diagnosis/treatment) compared to non-celiac controls. The sample set consisted of 15 CD children at diagnosis (on a gluten-containing diet, with CD associated antibodies, atrophy of intestinal villi and crypt hyperplasia), and the same patients in remission after being treated with GFD for >2 years (asymptomatic, antibody negative, and normalized intestinal epithelium at that time), plus 15 tissue samples from non-celiac individuals not suffering from inflammation at the time of endoscopy used as controls