Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)includes Crohn’s disease (CD)and ulcerative colitis (UC).The differential diagnosis between CD and UC mainly depends on clinical symptoms,endoscopy,pathological biopsy,laboratory and imaging examinations.In recent years,studies with a variety of IBD-related biomarkers develop rapidly because of its non-invasiveness,simple and easily acceptable.With the development of genome-wide association study (GWAS),great progress has been achieved in studies of gene mutations and susceptibility genes related with CD and UC,which provides new approach for diagnosis of the disease.This article reviewed the advances in studies on serum biomarkers and susceptibility genes in differential diagnosis of IBD.