AQP9 and inflammatory bowel disease: Finally, of particular interest in our findings are the genes of the channels proteins AQP (Aquaporin) family, namely AQP9 and AQP8. AQP9 belongs to the aquaglyceroporins subfamily facilitates the membrane transport of water and glycerol and consistently displayed upregulation across UC, CD and IBD patients compared to non-IBD control subjects, demonstrating a commonality that also emerged in all our ML analyses.