Max McGee National Research Center for Juvenile Diabetes

Jill Waukau

I use a combination of gene expression and functional assays to try and determine how the T-cells from T1D individuals are different from people who do not get diabetes. I am currently looking at gene expression in Regulatory and Effector T-cells. Initial data shows that in Regulatory T-cells several HLA genes are down-regulated in T1D individuals.

I am also exploring the role of IL-2 in the pathogenesis of T1D. The T-cells from most T1D individuals produce less IL-2 than Control individuals. However, some T1D individuals produce much more IL-2 than Control individuals. I plan to investigate this phenomenon in more detail by comparing the genetic information we have about genes associated with T1D to IL-2 production.

Future plans are to look at the importance of splice forms for the FoxP3 protein, a molecule important for Regulatory T-cell function.

Publications:

1. Waukau J, Jailwala P, Wang Y, Khoo HJ, Ghosh S, Wang X, Hessner M. The design of a gene chip for functional immunological studies on a high-quality control platform. Annals of NY Academy of Science. Annals of NY Academy of Science 1005:284, 2003.
2. Glisic-Milosavljevic S, Waukau J, Jana S, Jailwala P, Rovensky J, Ghosh S. Comparison of apoptosis and mortality measurements in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PMBCs) using multiple methods. Cell Prolif, 38: 301-311, 2005.
3. Glisic-Milosavljevic S, Waukau J, Jailwala P, Jana S, Khoo HJ, Albertz H, Woodliff J, Koppen M, Alemzadeh R, Hagopian W, Ghosh S. At-risk and recent-onset type 1 diabetic subjects have increased apoptosis in the CD4+CD25+^high T-cell fraction. PLoS ONE 2:e146, 2007.