Defining shared immuno-inflammatory cell states and cell signalling circuits across autoimmune diseases

• Grant number: 21/13590-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: May 01, 2022
• End date: February 28, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Medical Clinics
• Principal Investigator: Eduardo Ferreira Borba Neto
• Grantee: Bidossessi Wilfried Hounkpe
• Supervisor: Sarah Teichmann
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FM). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Wellcome Sanger Institute (WSI), England
• Associated to the scholarship: 20/14223-5 - Evaluation of Bone Metabolism Parameters by HR-pQCT and Histomorphometry in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Patients: Association with Clinical and Genetic Variables, BP.PD

Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the synovium and the joint tissue, and chronic polyarthritis of small and large joints. The most common type of arthritis in children is Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). Chronic inflammation and the dysfunction of different populations of immune cells have been characterized as major compartments responsible for joint destruction and bone erosion in both diseases. Even though there are some therapies to control the course of these diseases, not all patients respond to existing treatments, suggesting the need for new therapeutic strategies. Shared inflammatory states make it possible to use the same drug to treat unrelated inflammatory diseases. This has previously been evidenced using anti-TNF drug in RA, JIA, Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis. Defining key cellular subsets and new activation states across autoimmune diseases will be important to discover new therapeutic targets and can provide a rationale for drug repurposing in RA. Herein, we posit that cross disease transcriptomic analysis has the potential to reveal shared pathway associated with RA, JIA and other autoimmune diseases. Publicly available scRNA-seq datasets across diverse inflamed tissues and circulating cells of autoimmune diseases (including RA and other autoimmune diseases) will be integrated to get new insights into shared immune-inflammatory states between autoimmune diseases at single cell resolution. (AU)