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Testin: a new epithelial target to protect leaky guts in CD patients
The causes of the intestinal barrier dysregulation in inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease (CD) and Ulcerative colitis (UC) are unknown. CD is characterised by the persistent chronic inflammation impacting the gastrointestinal tract and is associated with decreased intestinal mucosal barrier integrity.
In a recent publication, researchers have introduced testin as a potential target for IBD patients. The authors show that testin protects the intestinal barrier integrity of mice with Crohn’s disease-like colitis. Their results show that CD patients and TNBS-treated mice have depleted levels of testin (an intercellular linker protein of the epithelium) at baseline compared to healthy controls. Increasing the expression of testin in TNBS-treated mice and LPS intestinal organoids resulted in improved barrier function via the regulation of the tight junction proteins (ZO-1 and Claudin-1). Furthermore, increased expression of testin downregulated the inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6) and suppressed the JNK/P38 downstream signalling pathway to protect the intestinal epithelial barrier. The findings from this study shows a promising new target to improve the intestinal barrier function of CD patients.