Ethics Statement
Our study has been conducted in accordance with the principles expressed
in the Declaration of Helsinki, and was approved by the ethics committee
of Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University (2014037). Informed consent has
been obtained.
Patients and samples collection
Lithium sulfate anti-coagulated peripheral blood samples were obtained
from 378 IBD patients (185 CD, 193 UC) and 509 healthy controls. All
patients were recruited from the Department of Gastroenterology,
Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University (Wuhan, China) from September 2014
to January 2016. The patients were sub-genotyped according to Montreal
classification criteria. Healthy controls were selected among volunteers
from January to November 2015. The demographic and sub-phenotype data
for the patients and controls are shown in Supplementary Table 1. Total
genomic DNA was extracted from blood using the QIAamp DNA blood midi kit
(Qiagen, Shanghai, Germany). Inflamed ileal and/or colonic tissues were
collected from 36 CD patients and 52 UC patients who underwent endoscopy
at Zhongnan Hospital. All biopsies were taken from inflammatory sites
adjacent to ulcerations. Non-inflamed colonic mucosa samples were
collected from 14 healthy volunteers; another 20 normal biopsies
(Zhongnan Hospital from September 2014 to June 2015) obtained from
uninfected sites 20 centimeters from polyps or neoplasms served as
controls. All patients and controls were of the Han population from
Central China. Diagnosis of CD and UC was based on a combination of
clinical symptoms, laboratory and radiological examinations and
endoscopy with histology.