Welcome to the Gang Liu Laboratory website!
The Liu laboratory is dedicated to deepening our understanding of the mechanisms underlying lung injury, repair, and fibrosis. Our ultimate objective is to pave the way for effective treatments addressing pathologies arising from unsuccessful lung injury repair.
Our research delves into both cell autonomous and non-cell autonomous mechanisms. These mechanisms contribute to heightened lung inflammation and injury, misregulated repair processes, and the onset of pathological fibrosis. Our methodologies encompass conventional molecular and cellular techniques, single-cell metabolomics, single-cell RNA sequencing, and cell lineage-specific knockout and knock-in mouse models.
A central area of our research examines how cellular metabolic pathways influence the phenotype of diverse lung cells that make up the repairing or fibrotic niches. This includes pathways such as glycolysis, fatty acid metabolism, mitochondrial biogenesis and energetics, electron transport chain, TCA cycle, and amino acid metabolism – with a particular focus on proline, methionine, aspartate, glutamine, serine, and cysteine.
Furthermore, we are intrigued by the molecular dynamics regulating innate immune responses and inflammasome activation during bacterial and viral-induced acute lung injuries. Our emphasis lies in understanding the role of major metabolic pathways, intermediate metabolites, mitochondrial stress, and the integrative stress response in the activation of leukocytes in these contexts.
