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Updated: Aug 16, 2026

Conditional Reprogramming of Pediatric Human Esophageal Epithelial Cells for Use in Tissue Engineering and Disease Investigation
Published on: March 22, 2017
Hypertrophic eosinophilic gastroenteropathy is associated with reduced enterocyte apoptosis
R Cuperus1, M G Schäppi, N Shah
1Gastroenterology, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, London, UK.
Aims:
To investigate the cause of grossly elongated villi in four children presenting with obstruction due to a novel form of eosinophilic gastroenteropathy in which there was profound hyperplasia of the intestinal villi with grossly increased villous/crypt ratio and prominent mucosal eosinophilia. Increased eosinophils were also present in the muscularis propria and submucosa. All had intermittent diarrhoea and signs of a protein-losing enteropathy.
Methods And Results:
The cause of the grossly elongated villi was investigated by studying enterocyte proliferation (Ki67), survival factors (bcl-2) and apoptosis (TUNEL) in these patients (n = 4) and normal (jejunum n = 6, ileum n = 6) and disease (n = 6) controls. The most remarkable finding was that apoptotic enterocytes were undetectable in the elongated villi.
Conclusions:
It seems likely that a defect in the regulation of apoptosis of the epithelium occurs which could explain the remarkable hyperplasia of the villi seen.
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