Research underscores the urgent need for technological innovations to treat lung tissue damage from viral infections and the lasting impact of COVID-19. Our study demonstrates the effectiveness of recombinant human NV1 protein in promoting a pro-healing extracellular matrix that regulates homeostasis in response to excessive tissue reactions caused by infection and injury. NV1 achieves this by calibrating multiple biological mechanisms, including reducing hyperinflammatory cytokine levels (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe microbiome influences health and disease through complex networks of host genetics, genomics, microbes, and environment. Identifying the mechanisms of these interactions has remained challenging. Systems genetics in laboratory mice () enables data-driven discovery of biological network components and mechanisms of host-microbial interactions underlying disease phenotypes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArthritis, an inflammatory condition that causes pain and cartilage destruction in joints, affects over 54.4 million people in the US alone. Here, for the first time, we demonstrated the emerging role of neural EGFL like 1 (NELL-1) in arthritis pathogenesis by showing that Nell-1-haploinsufficient (Nell-1) mice had accelerated and aggravated osteoarthritis (OA) progression with elevated inflammatory markers in both spontaneous primary OA and chemical-induced secondary OA models.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeural EGFL like 1 (Nell-1) is essential for chondrogenic differentiation, maturation, and regeneration. Our previous studies have demonstrated that Nell-1's pro-chondrogenic activities are predominantly reliant upon runt-related transcription factor 3 (Runx3)-mediated Indian hedgehog (Ihh) signaling. Here, we identify the nuclear factor of activated T-cells 1 (Nfatc1) as the key transcriptional factor mediating the Nell-1 → Runx3 signal transduction in chondrocytes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF