Project description:<p>This project is analyzing tissue and blood samples from people with RA and lupus to pinpoint genes, proteins, chemical pathways, and networks involved at a single cell level. This type of modular, molecular analysis will allow comparisons across the diseases and will provide insights into key aspects of the disease process. The project will identify differences between those RA patients who respond to therapies and those who do not, as well as provide a better systems level understanding of disease mechanisms in both RA and lupus. This knowledge is essential for the development of targeted therapies and for the application of existing and future therapies to appropriate patient populations.</p> <p>Additional datasets can be accessed through ImmPort (<a href="http://www.immport.org/immport-open/public/home/studySearch">http://www.immport.org/immport-open/public/home/studySearch</a>), accession: SDY998, SDY999.</p>
Project description:Pathogenic missense variants in the leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) gene have been identified through linkage analysis in familial Parkinson disease (PD). Subsequently, other missense variants with lower effect sizes on PD risk have emerged, as well as non-coding polymorphisms (e.g. rs76904798) enriched in PD cases in genome-wide association studies. Here we leverage recent whole-genome sequences from the Accelerating Medicines Partnership-Parkinson's Disease (AMP-PD) and the Genome Aggregation (gnomAD) databases to characterize novel missense variants in LRRK2 and explore their relationships with known pathogenic and PD-linked missense variants. Using a computational prediction tool that successfully classifies known pathogenic LRRK2 missense variants, we describe an online web-based resource that catalogs characteristics of over 1200 LRRK2 missense variants of unknown significance. Novel high-pathogenicity scoring variants, some identified exclusively in PD cases, tightly cluster within the ROC-COR-Kinase domains. Structure-function predictions support that some of these variants exert gain-of-function effects with respect to LRRK2 kinase activity. In AMP-PD participants, all p.R1441G carriers (N = 89) are also carriers of the more common PD-linked variant p.M1646T. In addition, nearly all carriers of the PD-linked p.N2081D missense variant are also carriers of the LRRK2 PD-risk variant rs76904798. These results provide a compendium of LRRK2 missense variants and how they associate with one another. While the pathogenic p.G2019S variant is by far the most frequent high-pathogenicity scoring variant, our results suggest that ultra-rare missense variants may have an important cumulative impact in increasing the number of individuals with LRRK2-linked PD.
Project description:Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a systemic autoimmune disease that displays a significant gender difference in terms of incidence and severity. However, the underlying mechanisms accounting for sexual dimorphism remain unclear. To reveal the heterogeneity in the pathogenesis of SLE between male and female patients. PBMC were collected from 15 patients with SLE (7 males, 8 females) and 15 age-matched healthy controls (7 males, 8 females) for proteomic analysis. Enrichment analysis of proteomic data revealed that type I interferon signaling and neutrophil activation networks mapped to both male and female SLE, while male SLE has a higher level of neutrophil activation compared with female SLE. Our findings define gender heterogeneity in the pathogenesis of SLE and may facilitate the development of gender-specific treatments.
Project description:Mature neutrophis were freshly isolated from blood of pediatric systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients and healthy donors. Illumina microarray was used to assess transcriptional changes between SLE group and Control group. To uderstand further the gene expression difference between SLE and healthy neutrofils, neutrophils from healthy donors were cultured with autologous sera, SLE sera or Interferon and microarray data was used to compare with fresh SLE neutrophils.
Project description:Mature neutrophis were freshly isolated from blood of pediatric systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients and healthy donors. Illumina microarray was used to assess transcriptional changes between SLE group and Control group. To uderstand further the gene expression difference between SLE and healthy neutrofils, neutrophils from healthy donors were cultured with autologous sera, SLE sera or Interferon and microarray data was used to compare with fresh SLE neutrophils. (Expt 1) Neutrophils from 21 SLE samples (19 patients) and 12 healthy donors were isolated, and extracted RNAs were used generate microarray data. (Expt 2) Neutrophils isolated from 2 healthy children (not used in the first experiment) were cultured with autologous sera (control), Interferon alpha (100U and 1000U), and 4 SLE sera and 6 SLE sera for 6 hours and RNAs were extract for microarray experiment.