Anti-apoptotic genes and non-coding RNAs are potential outcome predictors for ulcerative colitis

Due to the lack of clinical, immunologic, genetic and laboratory markers to predict remission without relapse, there is no clear recommendation regarding withdrawal of therapy. Therefore, this study was to investigate if transcriptional analysis together with Cox survival analysis might be able to reveal molecular markers that are specific for remission duration and outcome. Mucosal biopsies from patients in remission, with active treatment-naïve ulcerative colitis and healthy control subjects underwent whole-transcriptome RNA-seq. Principal component analysis (PCA) and Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was applied to the remission data concerning duration and status of patients. A randomly chosen remission sample set was used for validation of the applied methods and results. The analyses distinguished two different UC remission patient groups with respect to remission duration and outcome (relapse). Both groups showed that altered states of UC with quiescent microscopic disease activity still present. The patient group with the longest remission duration and no relapse revealed specific and increased expression of antiapoptotic factors belonging to the MTRNR2-like gene family and non-coding RNAs. In summary, the expression of anti-apoptotic factors and non-coding RNAs may contribute to personalized medicine approaches in UC by improving patient stratification for different treatment regimens. Mucosal biopsies from patients in remission(RM and RL, n=19), test RM (Test, n=7), UC active (UC, n=14) and healthy control subjects (NN, n=16) underwent whole-transcriptome RNA-seq. UC active is taken from GSE128682. >>> Submitter states that raw data are unavailable due to patient privacy concerns <<<