Affiliation:
1. Department of Gastroenterology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College Beijing China
2. Department of Gastroenterology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuhan China
3. Department of Neurology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College Beijing China
Abstract
AbstractBackgroundImmune factors were involved in the pathophysiology of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The aim of the study was to test anti‐neuronal antibodies in sera of IBS patients and demonstrate their correlations with IBS profiles and psychological disorders.MethodsPatients with IBS met Rome III criteria and excluded organic diseases were enrolled. Controls included healthy subjects (HS), slow transit functional constipation, autoimmune diseases, and so on. Indirect immunofluorescence with monkey cerebellum and small intestine as substrates was used to detect anti‐neuronal antibodies including anti‐cerebral neuronal antibodies (ACNA) and anti‐enteric neuronal antibodies (AENA).ResultsA total of 293 IBS patients, 100 HS and 153 disease controls were included in this study. The ACNA positive rate of IBS patients was significantly higher than HS (14% vs. 6%, p = 0.033). The positive rate of ACNA was significantly lower than AENA (14.0% vs. 76.8%, p = 0.028) in IBS patients. The prevalence of headache and sleeping disorder were higher in ACNA‐positive IBS patients than ACNA‐negative IBS patients (61% vs. 42.9%, p = 0.03; 75.6% vs. 57.1%, p = 0.03, respectively). Among IBS patients, ACNA and AENA were both negative in 21.8% patients, ACNA negative and AENA positive in 64.2% patients, and ACNA and AENA were both positive in 12.6% patients. There were no significant differences of intestinal symptoms among the three groups, while the prevalence of headache (64.9% vs. 37.5% and 44.7%, p = 0.03) and sleeping disorder (78.4% vs. 50.0% and 59.6%, p = 0.02) were higher in patients with both ACNA and AENA positive than patients with both ACNA and AENA negative, patients with ACNA negative and AENA positive. There were no significant differences of the prevalence of depression and anxiety, HAMD, and HAMA scores among the three groups.Conclusions and inferencesAnti‐neuronal antibodies in sera of IBS patients were mainly targeted to enteric neurons and in a small part to cerebral neurons. ACNA were closely related to headache and sleeping disorder but unrelated to intestinal symptoms, depression, or anxiety of IBS patients.
Funder
International Science and Technology Cooperation Programme
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Subject
Gastroenterology,Endocrine and Autonomic Systems,Physiology