Transcriptional Drivers of Stricturing Crohns Disease

Stricturing complications are the major indication for resective surgery in Crohns disease. RISK is a multicenter pediatric CD inception cohort study. We aimed to define ileal gene programs and signatures present at baseline and linked with future stricturing behavior during a five year followup, and to identify potential small molecules to reverse these gene signatures. Therefore, antimicrobial serologies and pre-treatment ileal gene expression were assessed in a representative subset of 249 CD patients within the RISK cohort, including 113 that are unique to this report. These data were used to define genes associated with structuring behavior and for model testing to predict stricturing behavior.