Immune cell motility, location and environmental interactions during the resolution of skin inflammation
Supervisors:
Amy Saunders, Health and Medicine, Lancaster University
James Brewer, School of Infection and Immunity, University of Glasgow
Summary:
The resolution of inflammation is a crucial part of healthy immune responses which is impaired in the elderly and manifests as inflammaging. The resolution of inflammation is particularly important at barrier sites, such as the skin, where cells are in close contact with the environment and therefore are constantly exposed to inflammatory stimuli. Despite this, the resolution of inflammation is currently not well understood.
This project will use a model of the resolution of psoriasis-like skin inflammation, in which inflammation is driven by group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3) and dermal gamma delta T cells. Previous RNAseq analysis showed an enrichment for genes associated with cell motility in resolving skin ILC3 relative to both naïve and inflamed skin cells. This led to the hypothesis that during the resolution of inflammation, ILC3 and dermal gamma delta T cells increase their motility, potentially to change their location and/or interactions with other cells or tissue factors.
This hypothesis will be tested using cutting edge live cell imaging techniques to measure cell motility, high end imaging to determine cell interactions, and immunologic techniques such as flow cytometry to determine the effects of manipulating motility or cell-interactions, on the resolution of inflammation. Together this will determine critical factors regulating the resolution of inflammation which may contribute to inflammaging.