The primary CILia, a new biomarker and actor in COLonic carcinogenesis? – CILCOL

Treatment options for ulcerative colitis improved significantly in the last years, but many patients are either non-responsive or become resistant during drug regimen underpinning the urgent need to develop novel biomarker-guided therapeutic approaches. Primary cilia (PC) are an important signaling hub of cells, and we were the first to identify a role for them in the colon. Importantly, we found a decreased number of PC in the inflamed regions of biopsies from patients with ulcerative in comparison to the neighboring normal tissue. Together, we will now characterize colonic cells expressing PC and the molecular alterations induced by PC-loss using proteomics approaches, single cell and bulk RNA-seq. Finally, we will validate the potential of PC and associated molecular mechanisms identified in mice to serve as a biomarker on biopsies of UC patients. In summary, this project will identify novel vulnerabilities and describe the capacity of PC to be a disease indicator.