FRIDAY, June 26, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- A unique protein signature has been identified for pediatric-onset inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which is associated with proinflammatory and vascular pathways, according to a study published in the June issue of eBioMedicine.
Mmeyeneabasi Omede, M.D., from Mass General Hospital for Children in Boston, and colleagues applied SomaScan proteomics to serum samples from a retrospective study of 47 patients with IBD and non-IBD patients seen in a tertiary care pediatric gastroenterology clinic. A total of 1,305 proteins were measured in order to discriminate between IBD and non-IBD and between ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn disease (CD). Four proteins were further validated in two retrospective cohorts of 295 and 105 individuals.
The researchers identified 95 serum protein biomarkers that differentiated IBD from non-IBD and 70 proteins that distinguished UC from CD in the SomaScan discovery phase. Specific inflammatory processes and vascular functions were linked to IBD and UC versus CD in pathway analysis. For identifying IBD, an eight-protein classifier achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.95. In an expanded cohort (295 patients), significant elevation of four predictor proteins (MMP1, MMP3, Resistin, Haptoglobin) in IBD was validated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. In two independent cohorts, the four-protein Support Vector Machine (SVM) predictor achieved an AUC of 0.86 and 0.90 for IBD discrimination. In independent validation, a separate four-protein SVM predictor achieved an AUC of 0.93 for differentiating UC from CD.
"A validated blood-based diagnostic approach could help reduce diagnostic delays, minimize invasive procedures, and support earlier, more personalized treatment decisions for children with IBD," co-senior author Towia A. Libermann, Ph.D., M.P.H., from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said in a statement.
Several authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
