Sylvain-Georges Bourgoin

Prof. Bourgoin is a regular researcher at the Centre de Recherche du CHU de Québec-Université and a full Professor in the Department of Microbiology-Infectiology and Immunology of the Faculty of Medicine at Laval University. His work focuses on lipid mediators of inflammation in systemic autoimmune diseases and dysfunction of innate immunity cells.

He has published 118 articles in scientific journals (h-index: 46). His work has been the subject of several editorial reviews of scientific journals. He contributes to the notoriety of the Centre de Recherche du CHU de Québec-Université Laval by organizing and as a member of the advisory committee of the international symposia on neutrophils in immunity. He is a member of several editorial boards.

Role of extracellular vesicles and phosphatidylserine-specific phospholipase A1 (PLA1A) in rheumatic autoimmune diseases

Rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and lupus are systemic autoimmune diseases that affect mainly women. We identified a plasma protein marker named phosphatidylserine-specific phospholipase A1 (PLA1A) present at a higher level in the plasma of early arthritis and lupus patients as well as in synovial fluids of rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis patients. We wish to determine how PLA1A contributes to disease activity and if a high level of this biomarker is associated with disease severity and comorbidities such as atherosclerosis. We are currently measuring extracellular vesicles and PLA1A in the plasma of lupus and early arthritis patients and following the clinical manifestations over a 2-year follow-up. To understand the role of PLA1A, we created a mouse deficient for the biomarker. The project will generate novel information on the function of PLA1A in the pathophysiology of inflammatory arthritis. This could lead to the development of specific inhibitors to treat patients with high plasma levels of PLA1A. (The Arthritis Society of Canada)

Metabolic reprogramming of neutrophils and resolution of inflammation

Neutrophils are the most abundant white blood cells in humans. During the beginning phase of inflammation, due to microbial infection, neutrophils migrate toward the site of inflammation and play a key role against invading pathogens. We identified a human subpopulation of long-lived neutrophils involved in the resolution phase of inflammation. These cells present many characteristics distinct from their circulatory blood counterparts, including a unique metabolism associated with the expression of mitochondria-associated genes. This project proposes to characterize these long-lived neutrophils in terms of their metabolism as well as their functional role in inflammatory diseases. Understanding the unique metabolism of the long-lived pro-resolutive neutrophils and describing their suppressive functions will provide a better understanding of the processes involved in the resolution of inflammation. Characterization and scheming neutrophils towards cells with a pro-resolution phenotype could represent new ways for clinical prediction and therapeutic intervention in chronic inflammatory diseases in which the neutrophils predominate. (Canadian Institutes of Health Research)