These observations indicate that IL-21 amplifies an inflammatory milieu that promotes CAC, and suggest that IL-21 blockade may be useful in reducing the risk of UC-associated colon cancer.
According to the results, we hypothesize that the elevated level of IL-2+ and IL-21+ T cells and a positive correlation between IL-21+ cells with CAI in UC patients may contribute to the pathogenesis of disease.
Novel genetic risk markers for ulcerative colitis in the IL2/IL21 region are in epistasis with IL23R and suggest a common genetic background for ulcerative colitis and celiac disease.
In addition to the IL2/IL21 locus, we observed association of the TT genotype of SNP rs1545620 in MYO9B with UC (P = 0.0169; OR = 0.29, 95% CI 0.11-0.78) and association of rs17375018 in IL23R with pancolitis in Chinese UC patients (P = 0.002; OR = 2.38, 95% CI 1.41-4.02).