# Interrogating immune signatures in the thoracic duct of patients with multiple sclerosis

> **NIH NIH F31** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2022 · $34,290

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, immune-mediated demyelinating and neurodegenerative disease of the
central nervous system (CNS). The immune pathophysiology of MS is still incompletely understood. This gap in
understanding can be partially attributed to the relative inaccessibility of several immune compartments
implicated in MS immune pathophysiology, namely, the CNS, deep cervical lymph nodes, gut, and other
lymphoid tissues. In humans, the immune compartments of these tissues drain, at least partially, into the human
deep efferent lymphatics, which coalesce ultimately in the thoracic duct (TD). To this end, our laboratory has
established a research protocol by which to obtain TD lymph from patients with MS and healthy donors without
MS, as a means by which to better understand the immune processes associated with MS in these upstream
compartments. With this resource, alongside an existing cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)/peripheral blood (PB) single
cell gene expression database from patients with and without MS, I hypothesize that I will be able to identify
novel, tissue-specific immune signatures of MS present within the TD.
In this proposal, I will employ a high throughput proteo-genomic single-cell approach that recovers joint gene
expression and surface marker profiles from single cells in order to determine immune signatures detected in
the TD of patients with MS. Immune signatures will be assessed using both compositional and gene-expression
analyses in parallel. Furthermore, the findings will be integrated with our laboratory’s existing CSF/PB single cell
gene expression database to better determine the tissue-specificity of the detected TD immune signatures.
Overall, this proposal will provide insight into a still unexplored immune compartment in MS (the TD) and will
help guide future studies to further the field’s understanding of MS immune pathophysiology.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10386390
- **Project number:** 1F31AI167501-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Diego Alexander Espinoza
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $34,290
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-09-01 → 2024-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10386390

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10386390, Interrogating immune signatures in the thoracic duct of patients with multiple sclerosis (1F31AI167501-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10386390. Licensed CC0.

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