Inflammation, which is directly regulated by interleukin-6 (IL-6) signaling, is implicated in the etiology of several chronic diseases. Although a common, non-synonymous variant in the IL-6 receptor ...gene (IL6R Asp358Ala; rs2228145 A>C) is associated with the risk of several common diseases, with the 358Ala allele conferring protection from coronary heart disease (CHD), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), atrial fibrillation (AF), abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA), and increased susceptibility to asthma, the variant's effect on IL-6 signaling is not known. Here we provide evidence for the association of this non-synonymous variant with the risk of type 1 diabetes (T1D) in two independent populations and confirm that rs2228145 is the major determinant of the concentration of circulating soluble IL-6R (sIL-6R) levels (34.6% increase in sIL-6R per copy of the minor allele 358Ala; rs2228145 C). To further investigate the molecular mechanism of this variant, we analyzed expression of IL-6R in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in 128 volunteers from the Cambridge BioResource. We demonstrate that, although 358Ala increases transcription of the soluble IL6R isoform (P = 8.3×10⁻²²) and not the membrane-bound isoform, 358Ala reduces surface expression of IL-6R on CD4+ T cells and monocytes (up to 28% reduction per allele; P≤5.6×10⁻²²). Importantly, reduced expression of membrane-bound IL-6R resulted in impaired IL-6 responsiveness, as measured by decreased phosphorylation of the transcription factors STAT3 and STAT1 following stimulation with IL-6 (P≤5.2×10⁻⁷). Our findings elucidate the regulation of IL-6 signaling by IL-6R, which is causally relevant to several complex diseases, identify mechanisms for new approaches to target the IL-6/IL-6R axis, and anticipate differences in treatment response to IL-6 therapies based on this common IL6R variant.
Inhibition of PD1-PDL1 signaling in NOD mice accelerates onset of type 1 diabetes implicating this pathway in suppressing the emergence of pancreatic beta cell reactive T-cells. However, the ...molecular mechanism by which PD1 signaling protects from type 1 diabetes is not clear. We hypothesized that differential susceptibility of Idd mouse strains to type 1 diabetes when challenged with anti PDL1 will identify genomic loci that collaborate with PD1 signaling in suppressing type 1 diabetes.
Anti PDL1 was administered to NOD and various Idd mouse strains at 10 weeks of age and onset of disease was monitored by measuring blood glucose levels. Additionally, histological evaluation of the pancreas was performed to determine degree of insulitis. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using Log-Rank and Student's t-test.
Blockade of PDL1 rapidly precipitated type 1 diabetes in nearly all NOD Idd congenic strains tested, despite the fact that all are moderately (Idd5, Idd3 and Idd10/18) or highly (Idd3/10/18 and Idd9) protected from spontaneous type 1 diabetes by virtue of their protective Idd genes. Only the Idd3/5 strain, which is nearly 100% protected from spontaneous disease, remained normoglycemic following PDL1 blockade.
These results indicate that multiple Idd loci collaborate with PD1 signaling. Anti PDL1 treatment undermines a large portion of the genetic protection mediated by Idd genes in the NOD model of type 1 diabetes. Basal insulitis correlated with higher susceptibility to type 1 diabetes. These findings have important implications since the PD1 pathway is a target for immunotherapy.
Thousands of genetic variants are associated with human disease risk, but linkage disequilibrium (LD) hinders fine-mapping the causal variants. Both lack of power, and joint tagging of two or more ...distinct causal variants by a single non-causal SNP, lead to inaccuracies in fine-mapping, with stochastic search more robust than stepwise. We develop a computationally efficient multinomial fine-mapping (MFM) approach that borrows information between diseases in a Bayesian framework. We show that MFM has greater accuracy than single disease analysis when shared causal variants exist, and negligible loss of precision otherwise. MFM analysis of six immune-mediated diseases reveals causal variants undetected in individual disease analysis, including in IL2RA where we confirm functional effects of multiple causal variants using allele-specific expression in sorted CD4
T cells from genotype-selected individuals. MFM has the potential to increase fine-mapping resolution in related diseases enabling the identification of associated cellular and molecular phenotypes.
Traditionally, the transcriptomic and proteomic characterisation of CD4
T cells at the single-cell level has been performed by two largely exclusive types of technologies: single-cell RNA sequencing ...(scRNA-seq) and antibody-based cytometry. Here, we present a multi-omics approach allowing the simultaneous targeted quantification of mRNA and protein expression in single cells and investigate its performance to dissect the heterogeneity of human immune cell populations.
We have quantified the single-cell expression of 397 genes at the mRNA level and up to 68 proteins using oligo-conjugated antibodies (AbSeq) in 43,656 primary CD4
T cells isolated from the blood and 31,907 CD45
cells isolated from the blood and matched duodenal biopsies. We explored the sensitivity of this targeted scRNA-seq approach to dissect the heterogeneity of human immune cell populations and identify trajectories of functional T cell differentiation.
We provide a high-resolution map of human primary CD4
T cells and identify precise trajectories of Th1, Th17 and regulatory T cell (Treg) differentiation in the blood and tissue. The sensitivity provided by this multi-omics approach identified the expression of the B7 molecules CD80 and CD86 on the surface of CD4
Tregs, and we further demonstrated that B7 expression has the potential to identify recently activated T cells in circulation. Moreover, we identified a rare subset of CCR9
T cells in the blood with tissue-homing properties and expression of several immune checkpoint molecules, suggestive of a regulatory function.
The transcriptomic and proteomic hybrid technology described in this study provides a cost-effective solution to dissect the heterogeneity of immune cell populations at extremely high resolution. Unexpectedly, CD80 and CD86, normally expressed on antigen-presenting cells, were detected on a subset of activated Tregs, indicating a role for these co-stimulatory molecules in regulating the dynamics of CD4
T cell responses.
Autoimmune disease-associated variants are preferentially found in regulatory regions in immune cells, particularly CD4
T cells. Linking such regulatory regions to gene promoters in disease-relevant ...cell contexts facilitates identification of candidate disease genes.
Within 4 h, activation of CD4
T cells invokes changes in histone modifications and enhancer RNA transcription that correspond to altered expression of the interacting genes identified by promoter capture Hi-C. By integrating promoter capture Hi-C data with genetic associations for five autoimmune diseases, we prioritised 245 candidate genes with a median distance from peak signal to prioritised gene of 153 kb. Just under half (108/245) prioritised genes related to activation-sensitive interactions. This included IL2RA, where allele-specific expression analyses were consistent with its interaction-mediated regulation, illustrating the utility of the approach.
Our systematic experimental framework offers an alternative approach to candidate causal gene identification for variants with cell state-specific functional effects, with achievable sample sizes.
The molecular heterogeneity of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases has been one of the main obstacles to the development of safe and specific therapeutic options. Here, we evaluated the diagnostic ...and clinical value of a robust, inexpensive, immunoassay detecting the circulating soluble form of the monocyte-specific surface receptor sialic acid binding Ig-like lectin 1 (sSIGLEC-1).
We developed an immunoassay to measure sSIGLEC-1 in small volumes of plasma/serum from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients (n = 75) and healthy donors (n = 504). Samples from systemic sclerosis patients (n = 99) were studied as an autoimmune control. We investigated the correlation between sSIGLEC-1 and both monocyte surface SIGLEC-1 and type I interferon-regulated gene (IRG) expression. Associations of sSIGLEC-1 with clinical features were evaluated in an independent cohort of SLE patients (n = 656).
Plasma concentrations of sSIGLEC-1 strongly correlated with expression of SIGLEC-1 on the surface of blood monocytes and with IRG expression in SLE patients. We found ancestry-related differences in sSIGLEC-1 concentrations in SLE patients, with patients of non-European ancestry showing higher levels compared to patients of European ancestry. Higher sSIGLEC-1 concentrations were associated with lower serum complement component 3 and increased frequency of renal complications in European patients, but not with the SLE Disease Activity Index clinical score.
Our sSIGLEC-1 immunoassay provides a specific and easily assayed marker for monocyte-macrophage activation, and interferonopathy in SLE and other diseases. Further studies can extend its clinical associations and its potential use to stratify patients and as a secondary endpoint in clinical trials.
As the dimensionality, throughput and complexity of cytometry data increases, so does the demand for user-friendly, interactive analysis tools that leverage high-performance machine learning ...frameworks. Here we introduce FlowAtlas: an interactive web application that enables dimensionality reduction of cytometry data without down-sampling and that is compatible with datasets stained with non-identical panels. FlowAtlas bridges the user-friendly environment of FlowJo and computational tools in Julia developed by the scientific machine learning community, eliminating the need for coding and bioinformatics expertise. New population discovery and detection of rare populations in FlowAtlas is intuitive and rapid. We demonstrate the capabilities of FlowAtlas using a human multi-tissue, multi-donor immune cell dataset, highlighting key immunological findings. FlowAtlas is available at https://github.com/gszep/FlowAtlas.jl.git .
The retinoid X receptor agonist bexarotene promotes remyelination in patients with multiple sclerosis. Murine studies have also demonstrated that RXR agonists have anti-inflammatory effects by ...enhancing the ability of all-trans-retinoic acid (
RA) to promote T-regulatory cell (Treg) induction and reduce Th17 differentiation
By stimulating human naïve CD4 T-cells in the presence of Treg or Th17 skewing cytokines, we show that bexarotene also tips the human Treg/Th17 axis in favor of Treg induction, but unlike murine cells this occurs independently of
RA and retinoic acid receptor signaling. Tregs induced in the presence of bexarotene express canonical markers of T-regulation and are functionally suppressive
Circulating Treg numbers did not increase in the blood of trial patients receiving bexarotene; we believe this is because Treg induction is likely to occur within tissues. These findings lend support to developing RXR agonists as treatments of autoimmune diseases, in particular multiple sclerosis.
Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a chronic multi-factorial disorder characterized by the immune-mediated destruction of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. Variations at a large number of genes ...influence susceptibility to spontaneous autoimmune T1D in non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice, one of the most frequently studied animal models for human disease. The genetic analysis of these mice allowed the identification of many insulin-dependent diabetes (Idd) loci and candidate genes, one of them being Cd101. CD101 is a heavily glycosylated transmembrane molecule which exhibits negative-costimulatory functions and promotes regulatory T (Treg) function. It is abundantly expressed on subsets of lymphoid and myeloid cells, particularly within the gastrointestinal tract. We have recently reported that the genotype-dependent expression of CD101 correlates with a decreased susceptibility to T1D in NOD.B6 Idd10 congenic mice compared to parental NOD controls. Here we show that the knockout of CD101 within the introgressed B6-derived Idd10 region increased T1D frequency to that of the NOD strain. This loss of protection from T1D was paralleled by decreased Gr1-expressing myeloid cells and FoxP3+ Tregs and an enhanced accumulation of CD4-positive over CD8-positive T lymphocytes in pancreatic tissues. As compared to CD101+/+ NOD.B6 Idd10 donors, adoptive T cell transfers from CD101-/- NOD.B6 Idd10 mice increased T1D frequency in lymphopenic NOD scid and NOD.B6 Idd10 scid recipients. Increased T1D frequency correlated with a more rapid expansion of the transferred CD101-/- T cells and a lower proportion of recipient Gr1-expressing myeloid cells in the pancreatic lymph nodes. Fewer of the Gr1+ cells in the recipients receiving CD101-/- T cells expressed CD101 and the cells had lower levels of IL-10 and TGF-β mRNA. Thus, our results connect the Cd101 haplotype-dependent protection from T1D to an anti-diabetogenic function of CD101-expressing Tregs and Gr1-positive myeloid cells and confirm the identity of Cd101 as Idd10.
Identification of alterations in the cellular composition of the human immune system is key to understanding the autoimmune process. Recently, a subset of FOXP3+ cells with low CD25 expression was ...found to be increased in peripheral blood from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients, although its functional significance remains controversial. Here we find in comparisons with healthy donors that the frequency of FOXP3+ cells within CD127lowCD25low CD4+ T cells (here defined as CD25lowFOXP3+ T cells) is increased in patients affected by autoimmune disease of varying severity, from combined immunodeficiency with active autoimmunity, SLE to type 1 diabetes. We show that CD25lowFOXP3+ T cells share phenotypic features resembling conventional CD127lowCD25highFOXP3+ Tregs, including demethylation of the Treg-specific epigenetic control region in FOXP3, HELIOS expression, and lack of IL-2 production. As compared to conventional Tregs, more CD25lowFOXP3+HELIOS+ T cells are in cell cycle (33.0% vs 20.7% Ki-67+; P = 1.3 × 10−9) and express the late-stage inhibitory receptor PD-1 (67.2% vs 35.5%; P = 4.0 × 10−18), while having reduced expression of the early-stage inhibitory receptor CTLA-4, as well as other Treg markers, such as FOXP3 and CD15s. The number of CD25lowFOXP3+ T cells is correlated (P = 3.1 × 10−7) with the proportion of CD25highFOXP3+ T cells in cell cycle (Ki-67+). These findings suggest that CD25lowFOXP3+ T cells represent a subset of Tregs that are derived from CD25highFOXP3+ T cells, and are a peripheral marker of recent Treg expansion in response to an autoimmune reaction in tissues.
•FOXP3+ compartment within CD127lowCD25low T cells is expanded in autoimmune patients.•Increased numbers of CD25lowFOXP3+ T cells are a circulating marker of autoimmunity.•CD25lowFOXP3+ HELIOS+ T cells are fully demethylated at the FOXP3 TSDR.•CD25lowFOXP3+ T cells could represent a terminal differentiation stage of regulatory T cells.
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