Research interest
Autoimmunity, Immunoregulation, T Cells, Gene Therapy, Cancer Vaccines
Current program
- Plasticity of Self-Recognition in Autoimmune Disease
- Immunoregulation of Autoimmunity
- Gender Regulation of Autoimmunity
- Gene Therapy in the Treatment of Autoimmunity
- Autoimmune Sensorineural Hearing Loss
- Ovarian Autoimmunity and Premature Ovarian Failure
- Autoimmune Myocarditis and Heart Failure
- Development of Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines
Brief Description
Our laboratory focus involves understanding the complex self-recognition
events that lead to progression of autoimmune disease and developing novel
therapeutic strategies that prevent disease progression. We have a long-standing
history of research on multiple sclerosis (MS) and have developed a widely
used mouse model called experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) that
mimics many of the features of MS. Our recent studies show that a single injection
of a gene encoding beta interferon is sufficient to provide long-term therapy
for central nervous system autoimmune demyelinating disease.
We have recently developed a mouse model for autoimmune sensorineural hearing
loss (ASNHL), the most common cause of sudden deafness in adults and have
developed mouse models for autoimmune-mediated heart failure involving targeted
recognition of several different heart antigens including cardiac a-myosin
heavy chain and the ß1-adrenergic receptor.
In addition, we have developed a mouse model for premature ovarian failure,
a disease that affects 1% of women in their childbearing years, and our extended
program involves the development of novel autoimmune models that provide effective
therapeutic cancer vaccines for ovarian, breast, and prostate cancer.
Publications
Tuohy, V.K., & Jaini, R. (2011) Prophylactic cancer vaccination by targeting functional non-self. Annals of Medicine (in press)
Gulen, M.F., Kang, Z., Bulek, K., Youzhong, W., Kim, T.W., Chen, Y., Altuntas, C.Z., Sass Bak-Jenson, K., McGeachy, M.J., Do, J.S., Xiao, H., Delgoffe, G.M., Min, B., Powell, J.D., Tuohy, V.K., Cua, D.J., & Li, X. (2010) The Receptor SIGIRR suppresses Th17 cell proliferation via inhibition of the interleukin-1 receptor pathway and mTOR kinase activation. Immunity 32:54-66. PMCID: PMC Journal – In Process
Kang, Z.*, Altuntas, C.Z.*, Gulen, M.F., Liu, C., Giltiay, N., Qin, H., Liu, L., Qian, W., Ransohoff, R.M., Bergmann, C., Stohlman, S., Tuohy, V.K.†, & Li, X.† (2010) Astrocyte-restricted ablation of interleukin-17-induced Act1-mediated signaling ameliorates autoimmune encephalomyelitis. (* indicates that Z.K. and C.Z.A. contributed equally to this work; † indicates that V.K.T. and X.L. contributed equally to this work) Immunity 32:414-425. PMCID: PMC Journal – In Process
Jaini, R., Kesaraju, P., Johnson, J.M., Altuntas, C.Z., Jane-wit, D., & Tuohy, V.K. (2010) An autoimmune -mediated strategy for prophylactic breast cancer vaccination. Nature Medicine 16:799-803. PMID: 20512124; PMCID: In Process
Commentary: Flemming, A. (2010) Cancer: steps towards a prophylactic breast cancer vaccine. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. 9:594-595. PMID: 20671760.
Commentary: Eisenstein M. (2011) Vaccines: Know your enemy. Nature 471:S8-9. PMID: 21430720.
Tuohy, V.K. (2010) A prophylactic vaccine for breast cancer? Why not? Breast Cancer Research 12:405. PMID: 21143772; PMCID: In Process
Liu, J., Lin, F., Strainic, M.G., An, F., Miller, R.H., Altuntas, C.Z., Heeger, P.S., Tuohy, V.K., & Medof, M.E. (2008) IFN-γ and IL-17 production in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis depends on local APC•T cell complement production. Journal of Immunology 180:5882-5889. PMCID: PMC Journal – In Process
Altuntas, C.Z., Daneshgari, F., Liu, G., Fabiyi, A., Kavran, M., Johnson, J.M., Gulen, M.F., Jaini, R., Li, X., Frenkl, T.L., & Tuohy, V.K. (2008) Bladder dysfunction in mice with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Journal of Neuroimmunology 203:58-63. PMCID: PMC2760767
Jane-wit, D., Altuntas, C.Z., Johnson, J.M., Forsthuber, T.G., & Tuohy, V.K. (2008) Sex-defined T-cell responses to cardiac self determine differential outcomes of murine dilated cardiomyopathy. American Journal of Pathology 172:11-21. PMCID: PMC Journal – In Process
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