The monoclonal antibody targeting the shared p40 subunit of IL-12 and IL23, namely ustekinumab, has been approved for Crohn's disease (CD) and has demonstrated promising results in the treatment of ulcerative colitis.
Consistently, neutralizing antibodies against IL-12/IL-23 p40 and IL-23 p19 have been successfully used in clinical trials for therapy of Crohn´s disease and pilot studies in ulcerative colitis are ongoing.
Moreover, genome-wide association studies have revealed that variants of the gene encoding the IL-23 receptor, as well as the locus harboring the gene encoding the p40 chain, confer genetic risk for developing Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC).
Epstein-Barr virus-induced gene 3 (EBI3) encodes a 34-kDa glycoprotein that is 27% identical to the p40 unit of IL-12 and has recently been reported to be up-regulated in ulcerative colitis (UC).