Dr Vicki Athanasopoulos
BSc (Hons) Uni Melb. PhD (Uni Melb)
Senior Lecturer
ANU College of Health and Medicine
T:
61253519
Areas of expertise
- Medical Biochemistry: Proteins And Peptides (Incl. Medical Proteomics) 110106
- Autoimmunity 110703
- Cellular Immunology 110704
- Biochemistry And Cell Biology 0601
Research interests
Understanding the genetic and molecular causes of lupus and other immune diseases.
Autoimmune diseases affect roughly 5% of the population with an even higher incidence in Indigenous populations. Despite the plethora of genetic variant information yielded by next generation sequencing data from patients, autoimmune diseases are still poorly characterised at both the genetic and molecular pathway levels making effective targeted treatments near impossible. My research looks at improving identification of potential disease-causing genetic variants in individual patients, understanding the molecular impacts these variants have on protein function and illuminating the biochemical pathways impacted so that we can tailor precision therapies to more effectively treat patients and improve health outcomes.
Please contact us to discuss current research projects
Publications
- Boast, B, Miosge, L, Kuehn, H et al. 2021, 'A point mutation in IKAROS ZF1 causes a B cell deficiency in mice', Journal of Immunology, vol. 206, no. 7, pp. 1505-1514.
- Hildebrand, J, Kauppi, M, Majewski, I et al. 2020, 'A missense mutation in the MLKL brace region promotes lethal neonatal inflammation and hematopoietic dysfunction', Nature Communications, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. -.
- Brohus, M, Arsov, T, Wallace, D et al. 2020, 'Infanticide vs. inherited cardiac arrhythmias', Europace, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 441-450.
- Tavernier, S, Athanasopoulos, V, Verloo, P et al. 2019, 'A human immune dysregulation syndrome characterized by severe hyperinflammation with a homozygous nonsense Roquin-1 mutation', Nature Communications, vol. 10, no. 4779, pp. 1-16.
- Jiang, S, Athanasopoulos, V, Ellyard, J et al. 2019, 'Functional rare and low frequency variants in BLK and BANK1 contribute to human lupus', Nature Communications, vol. 10, no. 2201, pp. 1-12.
- Athanasopoulos, V, Ramiscal, R & Garcia de Vinuesa, C 2016, 'ROQUIN signalling pathways in innate and adaptive immunity', European Journal of Immunology, vol. 46, no. 5, pp. 1082-1090.
- Pratama, A, Srivastava, M, Hawley, N et al. 2015, 'MicroRNA-146a regulates ICOS-ICOSL signalling to limit accumulation of T follicular helper cells and germinal centres', Nature Communications, vol. 6, pp. 6436-6436.
- Ramiscal, R, Parish, I, Lee-Young, R et al. 2015, 'Attenuation of AMPK signaling by ROQUIN promotes T follicular helper cell formation', eLife, vol. 4, pp. e08698-e08698.
- Jiang, S, Athanasopoulos, V, Cappello, J et al. 2015, 'BANK1: A critical genetic determinant of B-Cell systemic lupus erythematosus', 51st Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology Annual Scientific Meeting, ed. Peter G Kerr, Asian Pacific Society of Nephrology, Canberra, Australia, pp. 22PP.
- Srivastava, M, Duan, G, Kershaw, NJ et al 2015, 'Roquin binds microRNA-146a and Argonaute2 to regulate microRNA homeostasis.', Nature Communications, vol. 6, no. 6253.
- Pratama, A, Ramiscal, R, Silva-Galindo, D et al. 2013, 'Roquin-2 Shares Functions with Its Paralog Roquin-1 in the Repression of mRNAs Controlling T Follicular Helper Cells and Systemic Inflammation', Immunity, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 669-680.
- Athanasopoulos, V, Barker, A, Yu, D, Tan, AH, Srivastava, M, Contreras, N, Wang, J, Lam, KP, Brown, SH, Goodnow, CC, Dixon, NE, Leedman, PJ, Saint, R, Vinuesa, CG, 2010, 'The ROQUIN family of proteins localizes to stress granules via the ROQ domain and binds target mRNAs', The FEBS Journal, vol. 277, pp. 2109-2127.
- Yu, D, Tan, A, Hu, X, Athanasopoulos, V, Simpson, N, Silva, DG, Hutloff, A, Giles, KM, Leedman, PJ, Lam, KP, Goodnow, CC, Vinuesa, CG, 2007, 'Roquin represses autoimmunity by limiting inducible T-cell co-stimulator messenger RNA', Nature, vol. 450, no. 8 November, pp. 299-304.
- Vinuesa, C.G., Cook, M, Angelucci, C et al 2005, 'A RING-type ubiquitin ligase family member required to repress follicular helper T cells and autoimmunity', Nature, vol. 435, pp. 452-458.
- Gao, M, Brufatto, N, Chen, T et al 2005, 'Expression Profiling of Herpesvirus and Vaccinia Virus Proteins Using a High-Throughput Baculovirus Screening System', Journal of Proteome Research, vol. 4, no. 6, pp. 2225-2235.
- Holowaty, M, Zeghouf, M, Wu, H et al 2003, 'Protein profiling with Epstein-Barr nuclear antigen-1 reveals an interaction with the herpesvirus-associated ubiquitin-specific protease HAUSP/USP7', Journal of Biological Chemistry, vol. 278, no. 32, pp. 29987-29994.
- Athanasopoulos, V, Praszkier, J & Pittard, A 1999, 'Analysis of Elements Involved in Pseudoknot-Dependent Expression and Regulation of the repA Gene of an IncL/M Plasmid', Journal of Bacteriology, vol. 181, no. 6, pp. 1811-1819.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- TLR7 mutations cause human monogenic lupus: Understanding mechanism to illuminate therapy. (Primary Investigator)
- Cell-specific regulation of the microRNA/RNAi pathway (Secondary Investigator)
