Serum protein profiling of early and advanced stage Crohn's disease

•Early stage Crohn's disease (ES CD) serum proteome profile.•Acute phase proteins and C3c complement over-representation in ES CD.•Downregulation of clusterin, retinol binding protein and transthyretin.•Over-representation, only in ES CD groups, of a C3c isoform.

Crohn's disease (CD) represents a highly debilitating disease of difficult diagnosis and increasing incidence. Serum protein profiling of early stage Crohn's disease (ES) CD was investigated in order to improve the comprehension of the very early pathologic mechanisms and to support the difficult diagnostic procedures currently available. Inflammatory proteins and complement 3 chain C (C3c) were over-represented during ES CD, clusterin, retinol binding protein, α1-microglobulin and transthyretin were under-represented. A C3c isoform was found to be present only during ES CD. By now, lack of specific antibodies to detect isoforms made it impossible to perform alternative validation.

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