Funded Projects

Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) is a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by functional destruction of the salivary and lacrimal glands, resulting in the loss of saliva and tear production. Currently, there is no cure for SS and treatment options are limited due to a lack of our overall understanding of the disease. Therefore, there is a critical need to identify key pathways and mediators that are important in the pathogenesis of this disease in the hope to facilitate earlier diagnosis of SS and to mitigate or abrogate the progression of this debilitating disease. Emerging evidence suggests a functional role for the epithelial cells in contributing to disease development and progression, in addition to abnormal immune cell responses. We hypothesize that there exists distinct sub-populations of cell types whose identification and characterization holds the key to the molecular secrets of SS. To investigate this, we will utilize a well-established mouse model that recapitulates human SS and perform single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) of affected salivary glands. Furthermore, we will cross-reference our scRNA-seq based findings with transcriptomic datasets from human SS patients, to identify a conserved gene signature that defines the disease progression states. Long term, this will not only identify new biomarkers and therapeutic targets of SS but broadly also offer mechanistic insights for other autoimmune diseases with similar etiology and pathogenic underpinnings.