About 357,000 targets, from gut bacteria and viruses to food and the body's own proteins, were used to profile antibodies in stored blood from people who later developed inflammatory bowel disease. The result: an immune signature that was already different up to ten years before diagnosis. Dr Arno Bourgonje of University Medical Centre Groningen and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai presented the work at UEG Week in Barcelona on 19 October.
The team analysed 2,000 serum samples from 500 people: 200 later diagnosed with Crohn's, another 200 with ulcerative colitis, and 100 who remained free of either, with samples taken at diagnosis and roughly two, four and ten years earlier. Future patients showed less antibody diversity and stronger responses to herpesviruses. Machine-learning models told future Crohn's cases from healthy controls with an AUC of 0.90, and ulcerative colitis with 0.84.
The authors call it a proof of principle: the findings show an association, not a cause, and must be confirmed in larger, more diverse groups before any screening test is considered.
