• Jianglei Ma, Huijie Zhang, Yuanyuan Zhang, and Guangming Wang.
• School of Clinical Medicine, Dali University, Dali, China.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2023 Aug 4; 102 (31): e34482e34482.

BackgroundThe global prevalence of Crohn disease (CD), a chronic inflammatory disease of the intestine, has been increasing; however, the etiology and pathogenesis of this disease have not been fully elucidated. Therefore, in the present study, we aimed to better understand the molecular mechanisms underlying CD to aid the development of novel therapeutic strategies for this condition.MethodsBased on the transcriptome data from patients with CD, this study used an unsupervised learning method to construct gene co-expression molecular subgroups and the R and SPSS software to identify the biological, clinical, and genetic characteristics and signatures of each subgroup.ResultsTwo subgroups were analyzed. Compared to subgroup II, subgroup I consisted of older patients with a more limited range of disease presentation and had a higher number of smokers. The specific genes associated with this subgroup, including CDKN2B, solute carrier family 22 member 5, and phytanoyl-CoA 2-hydroxylase, can be targeted for managing intestinal dysbacteriosis. The number of patients showing infiltrating lesions was higher, the number of smokers was lower, and CD severity was worse in patients in subgroup II than those in subgroup I. The specific genes relevant to subgroup II included cluster of differentiation 44, tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase, and interleukin 10 receptor, alpha subunit, which may be related to viral infection.ConclusionThe present study segregated patients with CD into 2 subgroups; the findings reported herein provide a new theoretical basis for the diagnosis and treatment of CD and could aid a thorough identification of potential therapeutic targets for this disease.Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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