Influence of Bile Acids on Bacterial Uptake in Functional Dyspepsia

The participants will be expected on the department endoscopy of the University Hospital Gasthuisberg, Leuven, Belgium. They are asked to fill in a bundle of questionnaires concerning physical complaints, depression, anxiety (disturbances), pain/disease, body/interoceptive awareness, trauma/abuse and personality. Endoscopy will be performed and up to 8 biopsies will be obtained from the duodenum. All endoscopies will be performed by an experienced endoscopist. Biopsies will be mounted in Ussing chambers and the mucosal compartment will be exposed to commercially available fluorescein-conjugated microorganisms. Uptake of microorganisms will be evaluated by analyzing the serosal compartment and by confocal microscopy of the biopsies. These experiments will also be performed in combination with exposure to bile acids separately and jointly, to assess if bacterial translocation can be exacerbated by these endogenous luminal factors individually and synergistically.