Upregulation of the transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 in colonic epithelium of patients with active inflammatory bowel disease

Transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), the receptor of capsaicin, is a nonselective cation channel that is highly permeable to Ca²⁺. TRPV1 is involved in the activation of immune cells and plays a role in the pathogenesis of experimental colitis. The expression of TRPV1 in colonic epithelium and its correlation with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are poorly understood. In this study, colonic biopsies were taken from 60 patients with active inflammatory bowel disease, including 30 patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and 30 patients with Crohn's disease (CD), and 30 healthy controls. Disease activity was assessed according to the Mayo score, Crohn's disease activity index (CDAI) score, and the level of C-reactive protein (CRP). The severity of histological inflammation was graded using a scoring system that was previously described. For immunohistochemical staining, sections were incubated with a polyclonal anti-TRPV1 antibody. Next, image analysis was performed to obtain an integrated option density (IOD) value to evaluate TRPV1 immunoreactivity of five random fields per section, which was 60973±29112 for the UC group, 61942±32083 for the CD group, and 35154±21293 for the control group. Our data showed that TRPV1 expression was significantly upregulated in colonic epithelium of IBD patients compared with controls (P < 0.001). In addition, no significant differences were observed in TRPV1 expression between UC and CD groups (P > 0.05). Although TRPV1 immunoreactivity was highly expressed on epithelial cells and infiltrating inflammatory cells in colonic biopsies of active IBD patients, TRPV1 expression did not significantly correlate with disease severity (P > 0.05). Therefore, our findings suggested a crucial role of TRPV1 in inflammatory bowel disease, and indicated that further studies are clearly warranted to determine whether TRPV1 is a potential target for therapy.