Loukia Tsaprouni

Research Director for the School of Health Sciences

Email:: loukia.tsaprouni@bcu.ac.uk
Phone:: 0121 300 4330

Loukia Tsaprouni is a Professor in Health with interests in the areas of Genomics and Epigenetics of common diseases, complex traits aiming at the discovery of molecular origins of human disease, and the development of novel diagnostic and intervention strategies. She completed her PhD and Post-Doctoral qualifications at Imperial College before joining the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute as a Research Fellow. She joined Birmingham City University in 2017 as the School Research Director.

Working alongside world leaders both at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College and the Sanger Institute, she has experience studying the molecular and cellular aspects of complex human disease working towards developing novel therapeutic targets, using animal and cell models as well as patient samples.

The focus of Loukia’s research is to monitor epigenetic changes and post-translational modifications involved in respiratory and cardiovascular age related diseases with a particular focus to nutritional interventions in order to slow down or alleviate the disease onset. Her group investigates epigenetic changes in the genome of induced pluripotent stem cells and their parental fibroblasts in twins and how those signatures can be altered by nutritional changes.

Loukia has participated in large international consortia, has led research projects and has received funding and awards from the EU commission, the Royal Society, the National Hellenic Research Funding body, the NIH etc. She has published peer-reviewed papers in international journals and has presented her work in international conferences.

Qualifications

Memberships

Teaching

Research

Postgraduate Supervision

Publications

1. Locke AE, et al. (2015) Genetic studies of body mass index yield new insights for obesity biology. Nature, 518(7538): 197-206.

2. Gkoutos GV., et al. (2015) Best behaviour? Ontologies and the formal description of animal behaviour. Mamm Genome. PMID: 26215546.

3. Alum F, et al. (2015) Characterization of functional methylomes by next-generation capture sequencing identifies novel disease-associated variants. Nature Communications. 6:7211. doi: 10.1038/ncomms8211.

4. Shungin D, et al. (2015) New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution. Nature, 518(7538): 187-196.

5. Tsaprouni L., et al. (2014) Cigarette smoking reduces DNA methylation levels at multiple genomic loci but the effect is partially reversible upon cessation. Epigenetics, 9(10): 1382-1396.

6. Dick KJ., et al. (2014) DNA methylation and body-mass index: a genome-wide analysis. Lancet, 383(9933): 1990-1998

7. Bell JT., et al. (2014) Differential methylation of the TRPA1 promoter in pain sensitivity. Nature Communication, 5: 2978.

8. Grundberg E., et al. (2013) Global analysis of DNA methylation variation in adipose tissue from twins reveals links to disease-associated variants in distal regulatory elements. Am J Hum Genet., 93(5): 876-890.

9. Menni C., et al. (2013) Metabolomic markers reveal novel pathways of ageing and early development in human populations. Int J Epidemiol., 42(4): 1111-1119.

10. Saxena R., et al. (2013) Genome-wide association study identifies a novel locus contributing to type 2 diabetes susceptibility in Sikhs of Punjabi origin from India. Diabetes, 62(5): 1746-1755.

11. Glass D., et al. (2013) Gene expression changes with age in skin, adipose tissue, blood and brain. Genome Biology, 14(7): R75.

12. Grundburg E., et al. (2012) Mapping cis- and trans-regulatory effects across multiple tissues in twins. Am J Hum Genet., 44(10): 1084-1089.

13. Bell JT., et al. (2012). Epigenome-wide scans identify differentially methylated regions for age and age-related phenotypes in a healthy ageing population. PLoS Genetics, 8(4): e1002629.

14. Manning AK., et al. (2012) A genome-wide approach accounting for body mass index identifies

genetic variants influencing fasting glycemic traits and insulin resistance. Nature Genetics, 44(6): 659-669.

15. Cho YS., et al. (2012). Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies identifies eight new loci for type 2 diabetes in east Asians. Nature Genetics, 44(1): 67-72.

16. Small KS., et al. (2011) Identification of an imprinted master trans regulator at the KLF14 locus

related to multiple metabolic phenotypes. Nature Genetics. 43(6): 561-4

17. Caramori G., et al. (2011). Unbalanced oxidant-induced DNA damage and repair in COPD: a link towards lung cancer. Thorax, 66(6): 521-527.

18. Tsaprouni LG., et al. (2011). Differential patterns of histone acetylation in inflammatory bowel diseases. J Inflamm (Lond), 27;8(1): 1.

19. Moffatt MF., et al. (2010). A large-scale, consortium-based genomewide association study of asthma. N Engl J Med, 363(13): 1211-1221.

20. Pele LC., et al. (2007). Low dietary calcium levels modulate mucosal caspase expression and increase disease activity in mice with dextran sulfate sodium induced colitis. J. Nutr., 137(11): 2475-2480.

21. Adcock IM., et al. (2008) .Glucocorticoid actions on airway smooth muscle. Airway Smooth Muscle in Asthma and COPD: Biology and Pharmacology, 12: 235-254, DOI: 10.1002/9780470754221.ch12

22. Adcock IM., et al. (2007). Epigenetic regulation of airway inflammation. Curr Opin Immunol., 19(6): 694-700.

23. Tsaprouni LG., et al. (2007). Suppression of lipopolysaccharide- and tumour necrosis factor-alpha- induced interleukin (IL)-8 expression by glucocorticoids involves changes in IL-8 promoter acetylation. Clin Exp Immunol., 150(1): 151-157.

24. Adcock IM., et al. (2005). Redox regulation of histone deacetylases and glucocorticoid-mediated inhibition of the inflammatory response. Antioxid Redox Signal., 7(1-2): 144-152.

25. Cosio BG, et al. (2004). Theophylline restores histone deacetylase activity and steroid responses in COPD macrophages. J Exp Med., 200(5): 689-695.

26. Tsaprouni L. and Adcock IM. (2003) 13th European Respiratory Society Annual Congress. Expert Opin. Investig. Drugs., 12(12): 1997-1999.

27. Tsaprouni LG., et al. (2002). Triamcinolone acetonide and dexamethasome suppress TNF-alpha- induced histone H4 acetylation on lysine residues 8 and 12 in mononuclear cells. Ann N Y Acad Sci., 973: 481-483.

28. Kagoshima M., et al. (2001) Glucocorticoid-mediated transrepression is regulated by histone acetylation and DNA methylation. Eur. J. Pharmacol., 429(1-3): 327-334.

29. Tsaprouni L., et al. (2001) Histone Acetylation and Inflammation of the Bowel. Inflammation Research, 50(sup. 3): S 168

30. Tsaprouni L., et al. (2000) Stimulation of U937 Cells with LPS induces Histone Acetylation. Immunology, 101(sup. 1): 250.

31. Tsaprouni L., et al. (2000). Stimulation of human U937 monocytes with LPS induces histone acetylation. Annual Congress of the British Society for Immunology, 1, 111, 25.