Project description:We used SOMAscan to measure >1300 analytes in sera from healthy controls and patients with sJIA, MAS, sJIA-LD and other related diseases.
Project description:During acute sympathetic stress, the overeactivation of β-adrenergic receptors (β-ARs) caused cardiac fibrosis, by triggering inflammation and cytokine expression. It is unknown whether exercise training inhibited acute β-AR overactivation-induced cytokine expression and cardiac injury. Here, we reported that running exercise inhibited cardiac fibrosis and improved cardiac function in mice treated by isoproterenol, a β-AR agonist. Cytokine antibody array revealed that exercise prevented the expression changes of most cytokines induced by isoproterenol. Specifically, 18 ISO-upregulated and 3 ISO-downregulated cytokines belonged to six families (eg. chemokine) were prevented. A further KEGG analysis of these cytokines revealed that Hedgehog and Rap1 signaling pathways were involved in the regulation of cytokine expression by exercise. The expression changes of some cytokines that were prevented by exercise were verified by ELISA and real-time PCR. In conclusion, running exercise prevented the cytokine changes following acute β-AR overactivation and therefore attenuated cardiac fibrosis.
Project description:Protein and phosphorylation (Phospho Explorer Antibody Array, FullMoonBioscience, #PEX100) profiling of peritoneal monocytes (pooled lavages from 3-4 mice / condition) was carried out according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Project description:Background: Extra-articular manifestations of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), potentially due to systemic inflammation, include cardiovascular disease and sarcopenic obesity. Adiponectin, an adipose-derived cytokine, has been implicated in inflammatory processes in RA, but little is known regarding its association with inflammation in a pre-clinical period. Therefore, we investigated whether adiponectin was associated with inflammatory markers in individuals at risk for RA, and whether RA-related autoimmunity modifies these associations. Methods: We analyzed samples from 144 first-degree relatives (FDRs) of RA probands, of whom 23 were positive for anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide antibody and/or ≥ 2 rheumatoid factor isotypes (IgM, IgG or IgA). We called this phenotype the ‘high risk autoantibody profile (HRP)’ as it has been shown in prior work to be >96% specific for future RA. We measured adiponectin, cytokines/chemokines, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP). Using linear mixed effects models, we evaluated interaction between HRP positivity and adiponectin on inflammatory markers, adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, body mass index, pack-years smoking, and use of cholesterol-lowering medications. Results: In everyone, adiponectin concentration was inversely associated with hsCRP and IL-1b in adjusted models, where a 1% higher adiponectin was associated with a 26% lower hsCRP (p=0.04) and a 26% lower IL-1b (p=0.04). Significant interactions between HRP and adiponectin for associations with GM-CSF, IL-6, and IL-9 were detected in fully adjusted models (p=0.0006, p=0.006, p=0.01, respectively). In HRP positive FDRs but not HRP negative FDRs, a 1% higher adiponectin was associated with 97% higher GM-CSF, 73% higher IL-6, and 54% higher IL-9 concentrations. Conclusions: Adiponectin associates with inflammatory markers, and these associations differ in individuals with a high-risk autoantibody profile compared with those without. The interaction between adiponectin and autoimmunity may occur systemically, rather than at the joint, which may provide insight into the systemic effects of RA-related autoantibodies and inflammation in the absence of clinically apparent RA.
Project description:Human serum samples from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) subjects and healthy control subjects were probed onto human protein microarrays in order to identify differentially expressed autoantibody biomarkers that could be used as diagnostic indicators. Other neurodegenerative and non-neurodegenerative diseases were also used to help measure the specificity of the selected biomarkers.
Project description:Approximately 10% to 20% of patients optimally treated for early Lyme disease develop persistent symptoms of unknown pathophysiology termed posttreatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS). The objective of this study was to investigate associations between PTLDS and immune mediator levels during acute illness and at several time points following treatment. Seventy-six participants with physician-documented erythema migrans and 26 healthy controls with no history of Lyme disease were enrolled. Sixty-four cytokines, chemokines, and inflammatory markers were measured at each visit for a total of 6 visits over 1 year. An operationalized definition of PTLDS incorporating symptoms and functional impact was applied at 6 months and 1 year following treatment completion, and clinical outcome groups were defined as the return-to-health, symptoms-only, and PTLDS groups. Significance analysis of microarrays identified 7 of the 64 immune mediators to be differentially regulated by group. Generalized logit regressions controlling for potential confounders identified posttreatment levels of the T-cell chemokine CCL19 to be independently associated with clinical outcome group. Receiver operating characteristic analysis identified a CCL19 cutoff of >111.67 pg/ml at 1 month following treatment completion to be 82% sensitive and 83% specific for later PTLDS. We speculate that persistently elevated CCL19 levels among participants with PTLDS may reflect ongoing, immune-driven reactions at sites distal to secondary lymphoid tissue. Our findings suggest the relevance of CCL19 both during acute infection and as an immunologic risk factor for PTLDS during the posttreatment phase. Identification of a potential biomarker predictor for PTLDS provides the opportunity to better understand its pathophysiology and to develop early interventions in the context of appropriate and specific clinical information.
Project description:Relative protein levels for each sample were determined by interpolation of each dilution curves from the standard curve antibody slide. All the data points were normalized for protein loading and transformed to a linear value. Linear values were transformed to Log2 value and then median‐centered for hierarchical cluster analysis.
Project description:Epitope mapping studies aim to identify the binding sites of antibody-antigen interactions to enhance the development of vaccines, diagnostics and immunotherapeutic compounds. However, mapping is a laborious process employing time- and resource-consuming ‘wet bench’ techniques or epitope prediction software that are still in their infancy. For polymorphic antigens, another challenge is characterizing cross-reactivity between epitopes, teasing out distinctions between broadly cross-reactive responses, limited cross-reactions among variants and the truly type-specific responses. A refined understanding of cross-reactive antibody binding could guide the selection of the most informative subsets of variants for diagnostics and multivalent subunit vaccines. We explored the antibody binding reactivity of sera from human patients and Peromyscus leucopus rodents infected with Borrelia burgdorferi to the polymorphic outer surface protein C (OspC), an attractive candidate antigen for vaccine and improved diagnostics for Lyme disease. We constructed a protein microarray displaying 23 natural variants of OspC and quantified the degree of cross-reactive antibody binding between all pairs of variants, using Pearson correlation calculated on the reactivity values using three independent transforms of the raw data: (1) logarithmic, (2) rank, and (3) binary indicators. We observed that the global amino acid sequence identity between OspC pairs was a poor predictor of cross-reactive antibody binding. Then we asked if specific regions of the protein would better explain the observed cross-reactive binding and performed in silico screening of the linear sequence and 3-dimensional structure of OspC. This analysis pointed to the C-terminal helix of the structure as a major determinant of type-specific cross-reactive antibody binding. We developed bioinformatics methods to systematically analyze the relationship between local sequence/structure variation and cross-reactive antibody binding patterns among variants of a polymorphic antigen, and this method can be applied to other polymorphic antigens for which immune response data is available for multiple variants.
Project description:A short sequence of 11 amino acids belonging to the cj0669 protein from Campylobacter jejuni NCTC 11168 which was previously identified as potentially immunogenig was analyzed via alanine scanning to narrow down the significant amino acid residues within the sequence.