Fig. 6: Chronic reflux injury suppresses VSIG10L expression in the distal esophagus.

a Real time qPCR analyses of VSIG10L and TP63 RNA in distal esophageal squamous (SQ) biopsy tissues from patients without or with GERD. qPCR was performed in triplicate reactions per sample per gene, and B2M expression was used as an endogenous house-keeping control. Y-axes indicate fold-change (FC) in VSIG10L and TP63 expression in GERD and non-GERD samples, normalized to the average expression of the respective genes in the non-GERD samples. Each black dot overlaid on the bar graphs represents normalized qPCR value of individual sample. Error bars indicate mean ± s.d. Significant differences in expression levels between GERD vs. non-GERD were estimated using two-tailed non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test. Note the ~3-fold lower VSIG10L expression in GERD compared to non-GERD tissues. TP63, used as a control for squamous epithelial content in the biopsy tissues, showed no significant difference (n.s) between the two cohorts. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. b Distal esophageal FFPE tissue sections from two non-GERD subjects and five GERD patients (P1–P5) were subjected to H&E, VSIG10L ISH, and p63 IHC analyses. Control and GERD subjects were >18 yrs old, male (self-reported), and were of European ancestry, with the exception of GERD - P3 patient who is an African American Female (self-reported). GERD patients were on proton pump inhibitors or histamine-2 blockers. All images were oriented with luminal side towards the top and basal SQ cell layer at the bottom. Note the strong VSIG10L expression (magenta dots) in the subprabasal SQ cells in normal/healthy tissues from non-GERD control subjects. In contrast, note the marked reduction or depletion of VSIG10L-positive differentiated cells, concomitant with an expansion of basal-like p63-positive immature cells (brown nuclear staining), in GERD-associated reactive SQ mucosa. ISH and IHC assessments were performed on duplicate tissues sections from all control subjects and GERD patients to ensure technical reproducibility. Scale bar, 200 µM.