Project description:Chronic, progressive retinal diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy, and retinitis pigmentosa, arise from genetic and environmental perturbations of cellular and tissue homeostasis. These disruptions accumulate with repeated exposures to stress over time, leading to progressive visual impairment and, in many cases, legal blindness. Despite decades of research, therapeutic options for the millions of patients suffering from these disorders remain severely limited, especially for treating earlier stages of pathogenesis when the opportunity to preserve the retinal structure and visual function is greatest. To address this urgent, unmet medical need, we employed a systems pharmacology platform for therapeutic development. Through integrative single-cell transcriptomics, proteomics, and phosphoproteomics, we identified universal molecular mechanisms across distinct models of age-related and inherited retinal degenerations, characterized by impaired physiological resilience to stress. Here, we report that selective, targeted pharmacological inhibition of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDEs), which serve as critical regulatory nodes that modulate intracellular second messenger signaling pathways, stabilized the transcriptome, proteome, and phosphoproteome through downstream activation of protective mechanisms coupled with synergistic inhibition of degenerative processes. This therapeutic intervention enhanced resilience to acute and chronic forms of stress in the degenerating retina, thus preserving tissue structure and function across various models of age-related and inherited retinal disease. Taken together, these findings exemplify a systems pharmacology approach to drug discovery and development, revealing a new class of therapeutics with potential clinical utility in the treatment or prevention of the most common causes of blindness.
Project description:To determine the gene expression changes in the retina of Abca4-/-Rdh8-/- (dKO) mice, we collected retina samples from dKO animals under various experimental conditions, generated single-cell suspensions, and performed scRNA-Seq (10X Genomics).
Project description:Analysis of MDA-MB-231 breast tumor cell from knocking-down phosphodiesterase 3A (PDE3A), a cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase. Results provide insight into the role of PDE3A in breast tumor progression and metastasis.
Project description:Endogenous glucocorticoids (GCs) are pivotal in controlling inflammation. Keratinocyte-derived GCs contribute to local skin homeostasis as deletion of the GC-producing enzyme 11β-hydroxylase (Cyp11b1) in keratinocytes exacerbated skin inflammation. Since local tamoxifen-induced knockout (KO) induction may contribute to skin irritation, we implemented intraperitoneal injections to induce a systemic skin GC depletion preventing experimental skin irritation in order to reveal the importance of skin GC in steady-state. Both, local and systemic skin GC deficiency models exhibited reduced skin GC levels and increased migration of skin antigen-presenting cells to draining lymph nodes. However, systemic skin GC ablation did not result in pronounced skin inflammation as seen in local model. Interestingly, systemic skin GC deficiency elevated systemic inflammatory markers and provoked adrenal GC synthesis. RNA sequencing of keratinocytes revealed distinct gene expression patterns between local and systemic KOs. Local skin GC ablation showed a stronger inflammatory and apoptotic response, while systemic skin GC deficiency triggered several compensatory regulatory pathways, mitigating extensive skin inflammation. These findings underscore the critical role of local GCs in skin immune resilience against minor skin irritations and highlight the interplay between skin and adrenal GC levels.
Project description:VAMP7 is involved in autophagy and exocytosis mediating neurite growth, two yet unconnected cellular pathways. Here we show the occurrence of combined VAMP7/ATG9 secretory events. VAMP7 localized, together with LC3 and ATG9, in vesicles moving anterogradely along the axon towards growth cones. VAMP7 knockout disrupted the autophagy response to drugs and starvation. Release of extracellular vesicles triggered by autophagy was impaired in VAMP7-knockout cells and autophagy-deficient cells were impaired in VAMP7 exocytosis. Secretomics showed that VAMP7-knockout cells were impaired in unconventional secretion of cytoplasmic, exosomal and mitochondrial proteins. We further found that autophagy stimulated neurite growth in a VAMP7-dependent manner. Furthermore, neurons still grew long axons in nutrient-restricted conditions and when treated with autophagy-inducing drugs. A nanobody directed against VAMP7 inhibited the effect of nutrient restriction. We propose that VAMP7-dependent autophagic secretion contributes to a resilience mechanism to preserve axonal growth in restriction conditions, as part of brain sparing occurring in growth restriction.
Project description:The aims of this three-year study are to explore the protective and risk factors of resilience in colorectal cancer patients, and examine the effect of the resilience model-based care plan in reducing fear of recurrence and GI symptom distress and improving quality of life in newly diagnosed colorectal cancer (CRC) patients.
Project description:Individuals in a population respond differently to stressful situations. While resilient individuals recover efficiently, others are susceptible to the same stressors. Most existing information regarding the factors regulating stress resilience in vertebrates is from specific areas of the brain from adult rodents or humans. In order to study resilience during development, we established a new paradigm to identify resilience in zebrafish larvae. Using this assay, we identified resilient and susceptible subsets of zebrafish larvae at 6 days post fertilization and performed gene expression analysis on whole larvae.
Project description:Effects of phosphodiesterase 7 and 8A inhibition by RNA Interference on the gene expression of human mesenchymal stem cell-derived osteoblasts.