Human Correlation Core

The Human Correlation Core is using various molecular biology and bioinformatics techniques to characterize new immune regulatory molecules discovered by the consortium. Human orthologs of proteins that are found to be important in the immune response in mice are studied using two main approaches. First, the expression of these proteins is perturbed in primary human cells and the effect of these perturbations evaluated. Gene expression is knocked down using RNAi or increased using DNA transfection. The effects of these changes in gene expression on signaling are analyzed using flow cytometry (see Signaling Core). Newly-discovered regulatory proteins are also submitted to the Biological Reagents Core for production of specific antibodies for use in these characterization studies (e.g. FACS, immunoprecipitation, and Western Blot). The second main approach is to study the effect of polymorphisms in these genes on human susceptibility to disease, primarily using SNP analysis. The effect of these polymorphisms can be revealed in cytokine responses of human peripheral blood leukocytes to various pathogens. The consortium also has access to the DNA from cohorts of people infected with various infectious diseases. These can be analyzed for the association of SNP haplotypes in selected genes with susceptibility or resistance to disease.