This week we profile a recent publication in Communications Biology from the laboratory of Dr. Neal Paragas (pictured) at UW.
Can you provide a brief overview of your lab’s current research focus?
The Paragas Laboratory develops advanced preclinical imaging modalities such as quantitative bioluminescent tomographic imaging, and fuses them to cell-specific transcriptomic analysis to better understand the pathophysiology of kidney disease.
What is the significance of the findings in this publication?
The highly heterogeneous nature of the kidney’s tubular epithelium has made it challenging to identify unique cell-specific pathways, particularly when renal injury causes the loss of fiduciary landmarks. Here, we combine a cell-specific luciferase reporter system with a chemo-selective substrate to identify tissues “at risk” for acute kidney injury. We demonstrate that this platform system has the power to identify both cell-specific pathophysiological events and cell-specific transcriptional changes and consequently can identify novel therapeutic targets.
What are the next steps for this research?
We will use our coupled in vivo cell-specific image guided transcriptomic technique to map the kidney’s response to a range of kidney diseases to elucidate injury-specific biomarkers and targetable pathways for novel therapeutic development.
This work was funded by:
Work funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) grant DK094873.
