Increase in podoplanin-expressing intestinal lymphatic vessels in inflammatory bowel disease

Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) are two presentations of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs). Whereas the inflammation in UC is confined to the mucosa/submucosa, CD is considered a transmural disease with characteristic lymphoid aggregates with or without epithelioid granulomas in the subserosa. Here we examined and quantified the distribution of lymphatic capillaries in small- and large-bowel resection specimens (non-IBD n = 8; CD n = 20 and UC n = 13) using immunohistochemical staining with anti-human podoplanin antibody, an established marker for lymphatic endothelium. In normal small intestine, the lymphatic network originated in the capillaries beneath the surface epithelial cells, whereas it started in the lower third of the mucosa of the large intestine. Lymphatic microvessel counts revealed a statistically highly significant increase (P < 0.005 in the muscularis mucosae, P = 0.012 in the tunica submucosa and P = 0.012 in the tunica subserosa) in IBDs when compared with normal intestine. Numerical differences between CD and UC samples were not significant. Prominence of lymphatic capillaries could also be observed in areas where fibrosis replaced chronic inflammation. These findings suggested that lymph-vessel proliferation in IBDs may be triggered by chronic inflammation irrespective of its organization and is maintained in fibrotic end-stage disease.