Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2012
Mentor: Benjamin Chong, M.D.
Department: Dermatology
Room number: NL8.110G
Mail Code: 9069
Phone number: 214-633-1837
E-mail: ben.chong@utsouthwestern.edu
Project title: Quality of life in cutaneous lupus patients without systemic lupus
Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): 082010-241
Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):
Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects)
Brief Description of Project:
Cutaneous lupus erythematosus has a multi-factorial etiology that includes genetic, environmental, and immunological causes. It can present with or without systemic lupus erythematosus. At UT Southwestern, over 150 cutaneous lupus patients have enrolled into the Cutaneous Lupus Registry that was established to elucidate the etiology of cutaneous lupus, and improve methods of diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of this disease. For the past three years, we have been prospectively following these patients and collecting clinical information from their histories and physicals. We have been conducting quality of life studies using general quality of life and skin-specific questionnaires to assess how debilitating their disease is. Recently, we have completed a multi-center study looking at the quality of life of cutaneous lupus patients at two different medical centers. Now, we are seeking to focus on cutaneous lupus patients who do not have systemic lupus erythematosus, since about half of our cutaneous lupus patients do not meet criteria for systemic lupus. We will compare their quality of life to patients with other dermatologic and systemic medical conditions. We will also plan to compare how their quality of life scores change over time, and correlate them with disease activity scores (e.g. Cutaneous Lupus Erythematosus Disease Area and Severity Index) and physician assessment scores.
Project title: UVA1 radiation in lupus-prone MRL-lpr mice
Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):
Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): 2008-368
Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects)
Brief Description of Project:
Ultraviolet light radiation is a known trigger of cutaneous lupus erythematosus. Ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation is thought to provoke cutaneous lupus by inducing keratinocyte apoptosis, which become the foci of autoantibody deposition. On the other hand, ultraviolet A1 (UVA1) radiation has been shown to delay disease progression in murine lupus models such as MRL-lpr mice. The mechanism behind this phenomenon is unclear. We seek to identify key genes whose expressions are modified with UVA1 irradiation in MRL-lpr mice. To address this question, we will be running microarray analyses of UVA1-irradiated skin from MRL-lpr and control Balb-c mice. These analyses will be compared to UVB-irradiated skin from MRL-lpr mice and control Balb-c mice. Differentially expressed genes identified from these analyses will be confirmed using quantitative RT-PCR analyses. We postulate that multiple genes associated with signaling pathways whose involvement is up-regulated in UVB-irradiated MRL-lpr skin (e.g. NF-kB pathway) will be down-regulated in UVA1-irradiated MRL-lpr skin.
Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:
Publications:
1. Word AP, Perese F, Tseng L, Adams-Huet B, Olsen NJ, Chong BF. 25-OH vitamin D levels in African American and Caucasian/Hispanic cutaneous lupus subjects. Br J Dermatol 2011 Oct 3 [Epub]. PMID: 21966891.
2. Chong BF, Song J, Olsen NJ. Determining risk factors for developing systemic lupus erythematosus in discoid lupus erythematosus patients. Br J Dermatol 2012; 166:29-35. PMID: 21910708.
Projects:
1. April Taylor (MS IV) (2011-2012) – Subacute cutaneous lupus patients with or without systemic lupus: a comparative approach. (Manuscript to be submitted to Archives in Dermatology)
2. Quoc P. Tran (MS I), Daniel Wang (MS IV) (2010-2012) - A multi-centered study on quality of life in cutaneous lupus erythematosus patients. (Manuscript submitted to Journal of American Academy of Dermatology)
3. Thomas Lee (MS I) (2011-2012) – IgG and IgM autoantibody differences between discoid and systemic lupus patients support a protective role for discoid lesions. (Manuscript submitted to Journal of Autoimmunity)
4. Koriand’r Williams (MS II) (2012) – Gene expression studies in UVB-irradiated MRL-lpr mice
5. Roselynn Nguyen (MS IV) (2011) – A comparison of discoid lupus erythematosus patients with or without anti-nuclear antibodies
6. Kathryn Martires (MS IV) (2011) – A quality-of-life study in discoid lupus erythematosus patients at UT Southwestern
6. Shurong Chang (MS IV) (2010-11) - Type I interferon-inducible genes are up-regulated in the peripheral blood of discoid lupus patients (Abstract accepted to 2011 ACRT/AFMR/SCTS Joint Annual Meeting)
7. Aaron Mangold (MS IV) (2010) – Concomitant discoid lupus erythematosus and pemphigus vulgaris
8. Douglas Buethe (MS IV) (2010) - Quinacrine-triggered psoriasis in a discoid lupus patient on chronic chloroquine therapy