General information

Inflammatory myopathies are a heterogeneous group of rare diseases that have in common the presence of muscle weakness and a variable increase in serum creatine kinase.

This group of muscle pathologies mainly includes Polymyositis, Dermatomyositis, necrotizing myopathies and inclusion body myositis. Clinically, they may be presented as acute, subacute or chronic with markedly proximal and symmetric weakness, except for the inclusion body myositis, which is asymmetric and distal. The most characteristic histopathological finding is the presence of inflammation in the muscle biopsy, thus being an important test for the definitive diagnosis of all of them.

Although diagnosis by clinics and muscle biopsy can be approached in most cases, the lack of specific biomarkers difficult in some cases the diagnosis, prognosis and the use of more specific drugs.

ONGOING PROJECTS

Research in this area is focused on the study of the physiopathology of inflammatory myopathies to obtain new biomarkers and to develop new more specific therapeutic strategies currently existing.

1) Role of innate immunity in the pathophysiology of dermatomyositis:
Recent studies from our group (J Pathol, 2014) have demonstrated the role of an innate immune receptor, RIG-I, which could keep a local immune response specifically in muscle of patients with dermatomyositis.

The continuation of this line of research focuses on the triggers of impaired innate immunity using in vitro models.

2) Antibodies in inflammatory myopathies:
From sera of patients seek relevant autoantibodies in the pathogenesis of these patients using new technologies and models in vitro. The discovery of antibodies may have important therapeutic implications.

Publications

Ongoing Projects