Thesis Defense: Kim Haupt
Thesis Defense: Joyce Kang
Thesis Defense: Anastasia Lindahl
Thesis Defense: Joyce Kang This talk does not include questions
How do we leverage many large scale-scale single-cell datasets to better understand immune-mediated diseases.
  • We set out to understand HLA genes, which are critical for immune-mediated diseases.
  • We developed two methods to do this in single-cells:
  • scHLApers – a personalized pipeline to quantify HLA expression
  • Symphony – a general-purpose tool for integrating multiple datasets by reference mapping
  • By combining four cohorts, we created a cross-tissue atlas and mapped eQTLs for classical HLA genes in diverse immune cell types.
  • Single-cell eQTL models revealed dynamic HLA regulation and pinpointed their cellular contexts.
  • Regulation of HLA expression levels may contribute to biologically important and disease-relevant inter-individual variation in immune responses.