Ankylosing Spondylitis: role of the ER amino peptidases in antigen presentation
| Componente | Categoria |
|---|---|
| Marino Paroli | Componenti strutturati del gruppo di ricerca |
| Giorgia Paldino | Dottorando/Assegnista/Specializzando componente non strutturato del gruppo di ricerca |
| Componente | Qualifica | Struttura | Categoria |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valentina Tedeschi | Assegnista | Biologia e biotecnologia "Charles Darwin" | Altro personale aggregato Sapienza o esterni, titolari di borse di studio di ricerca |
Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) is a disease with strong genetic basis. that primarily affects the spine, causing chronic pain and discomfort.
The gene conferring the higher risk is HLA-B27, present in over 85% of patients.
Other genes have been found to contribute to the disease among which the aminopeptidases of the ER (ERAP1 and ERAP2). Their role is to influence the peptide repertoire, in particular that of the HLA-B27 molecules.
Understanding how qualitative and quantitative variations of the two ERAPs influence HLA-B27 expression and its peptide repertoire is therefore likely to give insights into the disease pathogenesis.
This project is aimed to investigate these aspects with the following tasks:
. Correlation of the ERAP1/ERAP2 transcript and protein levels with the magnitude of HLA-B27-restricted CD8+ T cell responses to viral and self peptides.
. Analysis of the relative ERAP1 and ERAP2 expression in polarized M1 and M2 macrophages in dependence of SNPs variations