Characterising extreme innate immune response phenotypes informative for disease using a functional genomics approach

The overall aim is to define and characterise extreme innate immune response phenotypes in order to gain insights into the functional alleles driving such differences between individuals; biological consequences in terms of gene regulation, cellular function and disease; and opportunities for therapeutic intervention. Key goals are (1) to analyse existing transcriptomic and expression quantitative trait mapping datasets for primary monocytes activated by lipopolysaccharide (endotoxin) or interferon-gamma from a large cohort of healthy volunteers to identify extreme responders (aggregated and gene level), using genetics to resolve functional alleles then validate and establish functional consequences including through chemical probes; (2) to use genome editing to conduct high-throughput screens in human induced pluripotent stem cell derived monocytes complementing the genetic data; (3) to define key nodal genes and networks for drug target discovery and prioritisation; and (4) to characterise prioritised genes and functional alleles modulating gene transcription and epigenetic regulation relevant to disease. Anticipated outcomes are improved understanding of pathophysiology in immune-mediated disease notably sepsis; exemplars to the field of how to establish mechanism for functional alleles involving regulatory genetic variants; improved interpretation of genome-wide association studies; novel nodal points involving TLR and related pathways as drug targets; and better drug target prioritisation.