Articles

Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy: PAK1 is a broad-spectrum anti-SARS-CoV-2 target

Yuxia Zhang
22 October 2023

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has had a significant impact on healthcare systems and economies worldwide. The emergence of new viral strains represents a major challenge in the development of effective antiviral agents. The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 interacts with ACE2 on the cell surface, facilitating viral attachment and entry. Spike protein also promotes ACE2 degradation, but the molecular mechanisms are not fully determined. In ...read more

Nature Cardiovascular Research: MCM8-mediated mitophagy protects vascular health in response to nitric oxide signaling

Yuxia Zhang
03 September 2023

Kawasaki disease (KD) is a systemic vasculitis mainly affects children under 5 years of age. If untreated, sudden death may occur due to coronary artery aneurysms. KD incidences vary among different populations, being highest among East Asian and lowest among Caucasian ethnic groups. But the underlying genetic mechanism is not fully understood.Dr. Meng Lin et.al from our laboratory discovered that children with KD who developed coronary artery aneurysms had decreased expression of the minichromosome maintenance ...read more

Cell: Liver immune profiling reveals pathogenesis and therapeutics for biliary atresia

Yuxia Zhang
26 December 2020

An important function of the fetal liver is hematopoiesis (generation of red cells and immune cells), which peaks around 7-17 post conception weeks (PCWs). After 20 PCWs, bone marrow takes over the majority of the hematopoiesis function. In bone marrow, progenitor B cells undergo processes that eliminate B cell receptors that have high affinity to body's self-molecules. Defects in establishing B cell tolerance can cause autoimmune diseases that target and destroy body's self-tissues.Perinatal infection has ...read more

Biliary Atresia: A Forgotten Killer Affecting 1 in 5000 Infants

Yuxia Zhang
24 November 2019

Jaundice is common in newborns. However, for up to one in every 5000 newborns, Jaundice may never go away and children develop Biliary Atresia (BA) (Hartley et al., 2009). The cause of Biliary Atresia is not entirely clear, both developmental defects or perinatal infections can cause obstructions of the extrahepatic bile ducts and result in rapid liver failure in early infancy (Lakshminarayanan and Davenport, 2016). Surgical removal of the duct remnants followed by hepatoportoenterostomy (Kasai's ...read more

Risk Genetic Variants in Children With Immune-Related Illness

Yuxia Zhang
21 November 2019

The relatively naïve and immature immune system from infants and children face numerous challenges in everyday life. The suspicion or diagnosis of primary immunodeficiency (PID), autoinflammatory disease (AID), Chrohn's disease (CD), Ulcerative colitis (UC), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) can be devastating to the families. Many of these pediatric-onset illness have significant underlying genetic contributions. Identification of compound heterozygous variants of recessive genes, X-linked variants in boys, and de novo variants may provide definitive diagnosis and ...read more

Cell: Pediatric Onset Colitis and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Yuxia Zhang
12 November 2019

Pediatric onset colitis and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) represent significant challenges to many infants, children and their guardians. Disease etiopathogenesis remains incompletely understood, and up to 50% children do not respond effectively to conventional therapy (JAMA Pediatr. 2015 Nov;169(11):1053-60. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.1982.).In collaboration with Prof. Fan Bai from Peking University, we performed scRNA sequencing and immune profiling on the colonic mucosae and discovered deficiency of CD39-expressing intraepithelial T cells (CD39+ IETs) in children with colitis or ...read more