Functional Consequences of the Macrophage Stimulating Protein 689C Inflammatory Bowel Disease Risk Allele

Abstract

By reducing the quantities of circulating MSP, the 689C polymorphism, or a variant in linkage disequilibrium with this polymorphism, may impact RON ligand availability and thus receptor activity. Given the known functions of RON in regulating wound healing and our analysis of RON expression patterns in human intestinal tissue, these data suggest that decreased RON activity may impact the efficiency of epithelial repair and thus underlie the increased IBD susceptibility associated with the MSP 689C allele.