Expression of mRNA for CXC and CC Chemokine in Colonic Mucosa of Patients with Ulcerative Colitis according to Disease Activity

Song, In Sung; Jung, Hyun Chae; Lee, Kyung Mee; Chin, Young Joo; Chang, Dong Kyung; Jung, Woon Tae; Kim, Chung Yong

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Cytokines play an important role in the recruitment of neutrophil and monocyte. Expression of mRNA for chemokines such as interleukin-8 (IL-8) and monocyte chernoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) are known to be increased in the colonic mucosa of ulcerative colitis. However, profile.' of other recently defined chemokines such as epithelial cell-derived neutrophilactivating peptide-78 (ENA-78) and RANTES (regulated on activation, normal T expressed and secreted) remain to be extensive]y studied.
METHODS
Total tissue RNA was extracted from colonoscopic biopsies from normal controls (NC, n=10) and patients with active ulcerative colitis (n=l7)[from lesion (UCal, n=17) and normal looking mucosa (UCan, n=14)areas] and remissioned ulcerative colitis (n=17)[from lesion (UCrl, n=17) and normal looking mucosa (UCrn, n=12) areas]. The chemokines for the present study were IL-8, MCP-l, ENA-78 and RANTES. Detection of chemokine gene expression was performed by reverse transcriptional PCR.
RESULTS
The expression of IL-8 mRNA was increased in UCal than in others (UCan, UCrl, UCrn and NC, p<0.05). The expressions of ENA-78 mRNA were significantly increased in all these 4 groups (UCal, UCrl, UCan and UCrn) than NC (p<0.001) The expression of MCP-1 mRNA was significant]y increased in both UCal and UCrl than its normal looking mucosa respectively and NC (p<0.05). The high expression of RANTES mRNA was noted in all groups (NC, UCal, UCan, UCrl, UCrn)(82%-100%), but there was no statistical significance arnong them.
CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that the role of IL-8 confines to only acute inflammed lesion, MCP-1 and ENA-78 play an important role in both acute and remissioned inflammed areas, but the area of expression of ENA-78 was broader than MCP-1. RANTES seems to play an important role in the basic immune system.