PhD student at the Institute for Digestive Research: Lead Author of a Prestigious Scientific Article

The article by Rūta Inčiūraitė, a PhD student at the Clinical and Molecular Gastroenterology Laboratory of the Institute for Digestive Research at LSMU, and co-authors has been published in the prestigious Journal of Crohn’s and Colitis of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (ECCO). In their study, co-funded by ECCO (the funding was awarded to Prof. Dr. Jurgita Skiecevičienė, the supervisor of the PhD student), the authors focused on the expression of small non-coding RNAs in spatially distinct colonic epithelial cells in ulcerative colitis. The detailed analysis, starting with microRNA profiling of colonic tissue from ulcerative colitis patients and integration of the data with publicly available single-cell level transcriptome sequencing (single-cell RNA-seq) data, showed potential involvement of microRNAs with altered expression in ulcerative colitis in regulating the gut epithelial barrier integrity via the IL-4 and IL-13 signalling pathway. One of the key findings of the whole study was the identification of two microRNA expression modules. The pro-inflammatory module reflected disease activity in different cell populations in ulcerative colitis and sensitively and specifically discriminated between active and quiescent stages of the disease. The anti-inflammatory module was exclusively associated with crypt bottom (mainly stem) cells during remission of ulcerative colitis. This study has revealed new microRNA molecules that could be applied in the future to the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases. Link to the article is here.