Sarcoidosis
Conditions
Keywords
macrophage, lymphocyte, cytokine, immunology
Brief summary
In sarcoidosis, over activity of parts of the immune system drives the accumulation of granulomas (collections of immune cells) in affected parts of the body. To facilitate development of effective and safe treatment options in the future it will be vital to understand how and why the immune system becomes over active. The aim of this research is to work towards this goal by studying cells of the immune system and the molecular pathways inside these cells that control how they behave. This will be achieved by analysing patterns of proteins and RNA (the code used to tell cells which proteins to produce) in immune cells present in blood samples and tissue biopsies from people with sarcoidosis.
Interventions
This is a non-interventional study
Sponsors
University of York
Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Study design
Observational model
CASE_ONLY
Time perspective
PROSPECTIVE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 85 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
1. Males or females, of any race, between 18 and 85 years of age, inclusive 2. Able to provide written informed consent 3. Clinician diagnosis of sarcoidosis 4. Treatment-naïve or receiving immunomodulatory therapy.
Exclusion criteria
1\. Evidence of acute bacterial infection or other condition likely in the opinion of the investigator to significantly impact results of blood assays.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Transcriptomics (RNA) -tissue | 3 years | RNA expression and distribution (on different cell types) will be scored quantitatively or semi-quantitatively. Statistical analysis will be descriptive with heat maps for RNA expression (clustered using complete-linkage clustering) and charts (median and interquartile ranges) for comparisons. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Protein - tissue | 3 years | Expression and distribution (on different cell types) of proteins which will be scored quantitatively or semi-quantitatively. Results will be descriptive. Comparisons will be made using appropriate statistical techniques. |
| Transcriptomics (RNA) - blood | 3 years | RNA expression in unstimulated and stimulated blood samples using Nanostring transcriptomics. Statistical analysis will be descriptive with heat maps for RNA and protein expression (clustered using complete-linkage clustering) and charts (median and interquartile ranges) for comparisons. |
| Cytokines - blood | 3 years | Inflammatory mediator concentrations in unstimulated and stimulated blood samples. |
Other
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Antibodies - blood | 3 years | Exploratory description of immunogenic proteins identified by serological analysis of recombinant complementary deoxyribonucleic acid expression libraries. |
Countries
United Kingdom
Outcome results
None listed