Genetic research has shaped the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) landscape identifying nearly two hundred risk loci. Nonetheless, the identified variants rendered only a partial success in providing criteria for the differential diagnosis between ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD). Transcript levels from affected intestinal mucosa may serve as tentative biomarkers for improving classification and diagnosis of IBD. The aim of our study was to identify gene expression profiles specific for UC and CD, in endoscopically affected and normal intestinal colonic mucosa from IBD patients. We evaluated a panel of 84 genes related to the IBD-inflammatory pathway on 21 UC and 22 CD paired inflamed and not inflamed mucosa and on age-matched normal mucosa from 21 non-IBD controls. Two genes in UC (CCL11 and MMP10) and two in CD (C4BPB and IL1RN) showed an upregulation trend in both noninflamed and inflamed mucosa compared to controls. Our results suggest that the transcript levels of CCL11, MMP10, C4BPB, and IL1RN are candidate biomarkers that could help in clinical practice for the differential diagnosis between UC and CD and could guide new research on future therapeutic targets.

The study evaluated the evolution of the incidence of infections with Klebsiella in the County Clinical Emergency Hospital of Craiova (SCJUC), Romania. Also, we monitored antibiotic resistance over more than two years and detected changes in resistance to various antimicrobial agents. Our study included 2062 patients (823 women and 1239 men) hospitalised in SCJUC during the period 1st of September 2017 to 30 June 2019. In 458 patients (22.21%) from the 2062 total patients, the collected samples (1116) were positive and from those, we isolated 251 strains of Klebsiella spp. We conducted a longitudinal analysis of the prevalence of Klebsiella spp. over calendar months, which showed a prevalence in surgical wards that ranged between 5.25% and 19.49% in June 2018, while in medical wards the variation was much wider, between 5.15% and 17.36% in April 2018. Klebsiella spp. strains showed significant resistance to Amoxicillin/Clavulanate, Aztreonam and Cephalosporins such as Ceftriaxone, Ceftazidime and Cefepime. We examined the possible link with the consumption of antibiotics in the same month by performing a multiple linear regression analysis. The evolution of antibiotic resistance in Klebsiella was correlated with the variation of resistance in other bacteria, which suggests common resistance mechanisms in the hospital environment. By performing the regression for dependency between antibiotic resistance and antibiotic consumption, we observed some correlations between antibiotic consumption and the development of antibiotic resistance after 1, 2 and even 3 months (e.g., resistance to meropenem was influenced by the consumption in the hospital ward of imipenem 1 month and two months before, but only 1 month before by the consumption of meropenem). The clustering of strains showed filiation between multiresistant Klebsiella spp. strains isolated from specific patients from the ICU. The evolution of prevalence and antibiotic resistance in Klebsiella correlated with the resistance in other bacteria, which suggest common resistance mechanisms in the hospital environment, and also with the consumption of antibiotics.

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In the last two decades anti‐tumor necrosis factor (anti‐TNF) therapy for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been widely used to induce and maintain clinical and endoscopical remission, completely changing management of the disease. In this study, we aimed to identify gene expression changes in inflamed mucosa from Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis patients treated with 5‐aminosalicylic acid (5‐ASA) (N = 25) or anti‐TNF agents (N = 12) compared to drug‐free IBD patients (N = 12) and non‐IBD control subjects (N = 18). The mucosal expression of 84 genes previously associated with IBD was evaluated by qPCR. We found that both therapeutic regimens induce a decrease in LCN2, NOS2, and TFF1, the levels of which are overexpressed in drug‐free patients compared to non‐IBD control subjects. Interestingly, a stronger effect of anti‐TNF drugs was observed on LCN2 and TFF1 levels. However, 5‐ASA seems to induce a more robust reduction of NOS2 expression. Moreover, we found that anti‐TNF treatment significantly increased ABCB1, leading to levels similar to those found in non‐IBD control subjects.