ACIP 328_2020 Understand why people with Rheumatoid Arthritis have the flu more often and how to help them

Цел на проекта: Scientists from 3 institutes of Institut Pasteur International Network (Bulgaria, Paris and Brussels) will combine their expertise, spread across the fields of immunology, epigenetics, and infection biology to assess whether the epigenetic code of transcripts and the genomic organization of lung epithelial cells is modified by rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and influenza infection, and whether RA thereby increases the susceptibility to infection.
By combining classical approaches with technological innovations, they will investigate host lung epithelium gene expression and the mRNA m6A modification, as well as chromatin accessibility in individual lung epithelial cells from arthritic Balb/c mice infected with a seasonal influenza virus H3N2. They will study an in vitro model of the human airway epithelium, whether or not putative changes in the host (epi)transcriptome are strain specific and / or dependent on the inflammatory environment.
This project will bring knowledge at the fundamental level but also help in the prediction and identification of the RA patients who are most vulnerable to the flu and its more severe complications.
Scientific coordinator: Dr Milena LESEVA, Laboratory of Experimental Immunotherapy – Stephan Angeloff Institute (Sofia, Bulgaria)
Institut Pasteur International Network collaborators: Dr Milena HASAN, Institut Pasteur (Paris) and Dr Cyril BARBEZANGE, Sciensano (Brussels, Belgium)