AKR1B10 and inflammatory bowel disease: DNA sequence analysis of the AKR1B10 promoter region, a gene frequently silenced in inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer [31, 32], revealed a repetitive sequence composed of tandem 4-nucleotide repeats, (TTCC)2(TCCC)5(TCCT)7, with a flanking C and T- enriched sequence (Figure 1A).