Dr. Hsu, Associate Professor of Medicine, studies the regulation of multiple types of immune cells in both humans and mice. Dr. Hsu has had a long history of interest and experience in studying mechanisms of autoimmune disease. She is the investigator who identified that autoimmune BXD2 mice exhibit unique features, including spontaneous formation of germinal centers, increased expression of activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID), increased production of pathogenic autoantibodies that are polyreactive, significantly increased percentage of IL-17 producing CD4 T helper cells.

Dr. Hsu has developed a two-tiered peptide microarray approach, coupled with epitope mapping of known autoantigens, to identify and characterize autoepitopes recognized by BXD2 autoreactive B cells. Using this method, tetramers were prepared from two linear peptides derived from two ribonucleic acid binding proteins (RBP): lupus La and 70 kDa U1 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (snRNP). Dr. Hsu and colleagues have subsequently identified that there was reduction of transitional T1 B cells associated with a significantly higher frequency and greater numbers of RBP-reactive marginal zone precursor (MZ-P), transitional T3 and PDL-2+CD80+ memory B cells in BXD2 mice, compared to B6 mice.