VanDussen KL, et al. - Researchers aimed at ascertaining alterations in intestinal cells that could contribute to the chronic and progressive course of Crohn’s disease (CD). They took an unbiased, system-wide approach, performing sequence analysis of RNA extracted from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded ileal tissue sections from patients with CD and without CD and noted transcriptional alterations to be associated with histologic alterations, such as differences in microvilli length. In patients with CD, decreased microvilli length and reduced expression of the microvilli gene set might contribute to epithelial malfunction and the chronic, progressive disease course.