GP2 Human

Crohn's Disease (CD), which is very common in Caucasians, is an inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Mucosal inflammation in CD seems to arise when dysregulation of the immune system breaks the balance between tolerance to commensal microbiota or food-derived antigens and immunity to pathogens. The autoimmune mechanisms takes part in the development of CD, and exocrine pancreas autoantibodies (PAB) are disease-specific in CD patients. It was established not too long ago that glycoprotein 2 (GP2) is the major autoantigenic mark recognized by CD-specific PAB. Furthermore to IgG and IgM PAB isotypes, IgA pancreatic autoantibodies were also identified in CD patients. GP2 is an extremely glycosylated 78 kDa protein with N-linked carbohydrates. It is responsible for up to 40% of all zymogen granule (ZG) membrane proteins in pancreatic acinar cells and is linked to the ZG membrane via a glycosyl phosphoinositol (GPI) anchor.