IFNE and Achalasia: The most significantly DEGs only in the distal esophagus include IL-33, IFNε, LOX, and JUN. On the other hand, 97 genes were uniquely differentially expressed in the proximal esophageal mucosa of achalasia patients (Fig. 4a): 68 of these genes were up-regulated (Fig. 4b) and 29 were down-regulated (Fig. 4c).