EXPLORING THE GLYCOBIOLOGY OF IMMUNE RESPONSE IN COLITIS-ASSOCIATED COLORECTAL CANCER

CAGNONI, ALEJANDRO J.; CUTINE, ANABELA M.; GATTO, SABRINA; MORALES, ROSA; MAZZEO, CHRISTIAN; MAY, MARÍA; GIROTTI, MARÍA ROMINA; RABINOVICH, GABRIEL A.; MARIÑO, KARINA V.

Brisbane

Congreso; 19th International Congress of Mucosal Immunology; 2019

Society of Mucosal Immunology

Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) are a group of chronic, relapsing and remitting intestinal inflammatory pathologies including Crohn?s disease and Ulcerative Colitis. First line treatments included general immunosuppressive agents and monoclonal antibodies against tumor necrosis factor and integrins. However, these therapies present serious drawbacks, i.e. high costs, lack of specificity or eventual loss of response. Moreover, IBD has been associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer (colitis-associated colorectal cancer, CACRC) development. Colorectal cancer (CRC), a high incident and lethal neoplastic disease, is a multifactorial pathology where genetic mutations, diet, inflammation, gut microbiota and intestinal inflammation are crucial factors that modulate the disease outcome. During the last decades, aberrant glycosylation has become an important hallmark of inflammation and tumor progression. As the structure and nature of glycans strongly influence various functional aspects of glycoconjugates, including cellular localization, turnover, protein quality control and receptor?ligand interactions, glycosylation changes can modulate or even alter important biological processes. In this work, we aimed at studying the effect of the inflammatory microenvironment over the gut glycobiology during colitis-associated CRC progression.