Dr. Joyce Rauch
Professor - Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology
Associate Member, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Autoimmunity, Cell Death, Innate Immunity.
My research focuses on understanding the induction and pathogenesis of autoantibodies in autoimmune disease, particularly, anti-phospholipid syndrome (APS) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). APS occurs primarily in individuals with SLE, and is defined by the presence of anti-phospholipid antibodies (aPL) and a clinical event (e.g., thrombosis). However, it is unclear why only some patients with aPL develop clinical events. We propose that aPL alone are insufficient to cause thrombotic events, and that a concomitant trigger of innate immunity (e.g., toll-like receptor activation) is required. We use both in vitro and in vivo models to study the role of the innate immune system in the induction and pathogenesis of APS and SLE. Collaborative studies using clinical specimens are also an important component of the research in my laboratory, and complement the studies using murine models.
1. Role of cell death in the induction of systemic lupus erythematosus.
- Dieudé, M., Correa, J.A., Neville, C., Pineau, C., Levine, J.S., Subang, R., Landolt-Marticorena, C., Su, J., Kassis, J., Solymoss, S., Fortin, P.R., and Rauch, J. Autoantibodies to heat shock protein 60 are associated with arterial vascular events in patients with anti-phospholipid antibodies.  Arthritis Rheum. 63: 2416-2424, 2011.
- Laplante, P., Amireault, P., Subang, R., Dieudé, M., Levine, J.S., and Rauch, J. Interaction of β2-glycoprotein I with lipopolysaccharide leads to toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)-dependent activation of macrophages.  J. Biol. Chem. 286: 42494–42503, 2011.
- Patel, V.A., Feng, L., Lee, D.J., Massenberg, D., Pattabiraman, G., Antoni, A., Schwartz, J.H., Lieberthal, W., Rauch, J., Ucker, D.S., and Levine, J.S. Recognition-dependent signaling events in response to apoptotic targets inhibit epithelial cell viability by multiple mechanisms: implications for non-immune tissue homeostasis.  J. Biol. Chem. 287: 13761–13777, 2012.
- Levine, J.S., Subang, R., Setty, S., Cabrera, J., Laplante, P., Fritzler, M., and Rauch, J. Phospholipid-binding proteins differ in their capacity to induce autoantibodies and murine systemic lupus erythematosus.  Lupus 23: 752-768, 2014.
- Salem, D., Subang, R., Okazaki, Y., Laplante, P., Levine, J.S., Kuwana, M., and Rauch, J. β2-glycoprotein I-specific T cells are associated with epitope spread to lupus-related autoantibodies.  J. Biol. Chem. 290: 5543-5555, 2015.