LGR5 and colitis: However, treatment with TUDCA, which is known to reduce experimental colitis by abolishing ER stress in colonocytes [41], partially rescued the vitamin D3-induced depletion of LGR5-GFP-positive cells and reduced the number of cleaved caspase-3-positive cells in intestinal organoids, suggesting that the depletion of stemness and apoptotic cell death induction by vitamin D3 may be mediated by ER stress induction.