COVID-19 and inflammatory bowel disease: A pathophysiological assessment.

• GI symptoms are common in patients with COVID-19, which may be related to abundant ACE2 expression in the intestinal epithelium. • Changes in ACE2 expression may affect functions of B0AT1 in AA absorption, thus contributing to the GI symptoms in COVID-19 patients. • Immune irregularities associated with IBD share cellular components with immune responses in COVID-19. • Immune modulating treatment for IBD may have overlapping effect on outcome of COVID-19 in IBD patients. Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, has led to the ongoing global pandemic. Although most patients experience no or only mild symptoms, some patients can develop severe illness, such as progressive pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and multiple organ failure caused by cytokine release syndrome. A majority of COVID-19 patients also develop gastrointestinal symptoms. These can present special challenges to the management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) due to potential interactions between the immune response related to SARS-CoV-2 infection and dysregulated immunity associated with IBD. In this context, the pathogenesis of COVID-19 is reviewed in order to address these questions regarding immune interactions between COVID-19 and IBD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]