Associate Professor Lu Jinhua

Research Interest

Understanding the molecular causes of antinuclear antibodies (ANA)

ANA-positivity is a necessary criterion in the diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and, in heterogeneous specificity, is broadly associated with systemic autoimmune diseases, infections, cancers and aging. The causes for ANA is highly polygenic but, rare genetic deficiencies, e.g. C1q, C1r, C1s or C4, ANA and SLE disease are caused. In the last decade, we focused on the molecular mechanisms underlying ANA induction taking complement C1 deficiency as a model. Work so far suggest that the nucleus is intrinsically autoimmunogenic by containing alarmins. We recently identified a novel alarmin motif in the nucleolus (GAR/RGG) which defines a group of self-adjuvanted autoantigens. C1q binds to the nucleolus to cause its dismantling through activation of the C1r/C1s proteases. We currently investigate whether single autoantigens are sufficient to stage antinuclear autoimmunity.

Cancer vaccine development

The GAR/RGG alarmin motif was surprisingly discovered also to possess potent cell-penetrating peptide (CPP) activity. The GAR/RGG motif also carry cargo proteins across the membrane of dendritic cells into the cytoplasm. We have patented this technology and currently develop a vaccine platform focusing on cancer antigens. The basic ideas is that the GAR/RGG motif allows cancer antigens to access to cytoplasmic MHC I molecules to activate cancer-specific CD 8 T cells.

Society and editorial memberships

1. American Association of Immunologists (Member)
2. Associate Editor, Journal of Immunology
3. Associate Editor, Frontiers in Immunology

Recent Publications

1. Xing H, Lu J, Yoong SQ, Tan YQ, Kusuyama J, Wu XV. Effect of Aerobic and Resistant Exercise Intervention on Inflammaging of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Middle-Aged and Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta- Analysis. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. 2022
2. Lin D, Mei Y, Lei L, Binte Hanafi Z, Jin Z, Liu Y, Song Y, Zhang Y, Hu B, Liu C, Lu J, Liu H. Immune suppressive function of IL-1α release in the tumor microenvironment regulated by calpain 1. Oncoimmunology. 2022
3. Yoong SQ, Lu J, Xing H, Gyanwali B, Tan YQ, Wu XV. The prognostic utility of CSF neurogranin in predicting future cognitive decline in the Alzheimer's disease continuum: A systematic review and meta-analysis with narrative synthesis. Ageing Research Reviews. 2021
4. Wu S, Teo BHD, Wee SYK, Chen J, Lu J. The GAR/RGG motif defines a family of nuclear alarmins. Cell Death & Disease. 2021
5. Chen J, Teo BH and Lu J (2018) A method for extracting the nuclear scaffold from the chromatin network. Bio-Protoc. 8:8; DOI:10.21769/BioProtoc. 2821.
6. Borghini L, Lu J, Hibberd M, Davila S (2018) Variation in genome-wide NF-κB RelB binding sites upon microbial stimuli and identification of a virus response profile. J. Immunol. (In press)
7. Chen J, Teo BHD, Cai Y, Wee SY, Lu J (2018) The linker histone H1.2 is a novel component of the nucleolar organizer regions. J Biol Chem. 193, 2358
8. Cai Y, Wee SY, Chen J, Teo BH, Ng YL, Leong KP, and Lu J (2018) Broad susceptibility of nucleolar proteins and autoantigens to complement C1 protease degradation. J Immunol. 199, 3981
9. Park HY, Tan PS, Kavishna R, Ker A, Lu J, Chan CE, Hanson BJ, MacAry PA, Caminschi I, Shortman K, Alonso S, Lahoud MH (2017) Enhancing vaccine antibody responses by targeting Clec9A on dendritic cells. NPJ Vaccines. 2, 31
10. Lu J and Kishore U (2017) C1 Complex: An Adaptable Proteolytic module for complement and non-complement functions. Front Immunol. 8, 592.