Characterisation of the sensory phenotype of the oesophageal mucosa in gastroesophageal reflux disease

Identification of Novel Immune Cell Signature in Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease: Altered Mucosal Mast Cells and Dendritic Cell Profile. The mechanisms underlying the most troublesome symptom of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), heartburn, remain incompletely understood. The pathogenesis of heartburn in GERD is likely to involve not only central mechanisms of sensitization including hypervigilance, but also multiple mucosal factors including maintenance of epithelial barrier integrity via tight junction proteins, expression of acid-sensing ion channels on nerve endings, and mucosal inflammation . We hypothesized that immune cell components play a regulatory role in mucosal mechanisms of sensitization in GERD, and aimed to identify differences in the immune cell signature and sensory mucosal markers between reflux phenotypes and healthy asymptomatic subjects. A total of 37 patients with heartburn symptoms were phenotyped endoscopically and with objective reflux studies into erosive reflux disease (ERD) (N=10), nonerosive reflux disease (NERD) (N=9), functional heartburn (FH) (N=9), and Barrett’s esophagus (BE) (N=9). RNA extracted from mucosal biopsies taken at endoscopy from 37 GERD patients and 8 healthy controls bulk mRNA sequencing, and sequencing data was analysed using Partek Flow. Immune enrichment analysis was performed using xCell.