Project description:The existence of immunoregulatory mechanisms that control autoimmunity in non-lymphoid tissues remains unclear. Through transcriptomic and lipidomic analyses, we found that psoriasis is tightly associated with a significant downregulation of fatty acid metabolism and biosynthesis pathways as well as Th2 signature genes. Among lipids-activated transcription factors, LXR and PPAR were required for fatty acid homeostasis and resistance to psoriasis in mice. STAT6 played a role in the homeostatic expression of LXR and PPARγ in the skin. Additionally, innate lymphoid cells established tonic type 2 immunity in normal skin by producing IL-13 continually. Mice lacking tonic type 2 immunity were more susceptible to psoriatic inflammation in vivo. In human skin, inhibiting tonic type 2 immunity worsened psoriasis-like inflammation and IL-17 production, while activating LXR or PPAR inhibited them. Therefore, tonic type 2 immunity is an essential tissue checkpoint that represses autoimmunity and maintains lipid homeostasis in the skin.
Project description:Epidemiological studies link exposure to mercury with autoimmune disease. Unfortunately, in spite of considerable effort, no generally accepted mechanistic understanding of how mercury actually functions with respect to the etiology of autoimmune disease is currently available. Nevertheless, autoimmune disease often arises because of defective B cell signaling. Because B cell signaling is dependent on phosphorylation cascades, in this report, we have focused on how mercury intoxication alters phosphorylation of B cell proteins in antigen-non stimulated (tonic) mouse splenic B cells. Specifically, we utilized mass spectrometric techniques to conduct a comprehensive unbiased global analysis of the effect of mercury on the entire B cell phosphoproteome. We found that the effects were pleotropic in the sense that large numbers of pathways were impacted. However, confirming our earlier work, we found that the B cell signaling pathway stood out from the rest, in that phosphoproteins which had sites which were affected by mercury, exhibited a much higher degree of connectivity, than components of other pathways. Further analysis showed that many of these BCR pathway proteins had been previously linked to autoimmune disease. Finally, dose response analysis of these BCR pathway proteins showed STIM1_S575, and NFAT2_S259 are the two most mercury sensitive of these sites. Because STIM1_S575 controls the ability of STIM1 to regulate internal Ca2+, we speculate that STIM1 may be the initial point of disruption, where mercury interferes with B cell signaling leading to systemic autoimmunity, with the molecular effects pleiotropically propagated throughout the cell by virtue of Ca2+ dysregulation.
Project description:Epidermal keratinoyctes consitute the primary physical and biological barrier of the skin. The goal of this study is to determine the functions of keratinocyte UBE2N in regulation of skin homeostasis and immunity.