University of Pittsburgh Department of Cell Biology

  • Research

    Angiogenesis is the process whereby new blood vessels sprout from existing vessels and requires that the specialized resident cells lining the vasculature, the endothelial cells (ECs), proliferate, migrate and differentiate spatially and temporally in response to specific signals. Vasculogenesis, on the other hand, has only recently emerged as an alternative mechanism of blood vessel growth in adult tissues and is the result of homing and engraftment of circulating EC precursors (ECPs) of bone marrow origin to sites of neovascularization. Both events are known to occur within the liver vasculature under very different conditions of growth, injury and repair, but the extent of each and the mechanisms by which they occur for each case is completely unknown. We evaluate the growth factor signaling events that accompany blood vessel growth and repair during liver regeneration following partial hepatectomy, and as the result of ischemia/reperfusion injury following liver transplantation. Comparative analysis of these two systems will elucidate both similar and dissimilar mechanisms that control these events and potentially lead to optimization of therapies that will reflect the specific requirements for injury based neovascularization in the liver.

  • Publications

    1. Rutledge CA, Lagranha C, Chiba T, Redding K, Stolz DB, Goetzman E, Sims-Lucas S, Kaufman BA. Metformin preconditioning protects against myocardial stunning and preserves protein translation in a mouse model of cardiac arrest.. J Mol Cell Cardiol Plus. 2023 Jun;4():. pii: 100034. doi: 10.1016/j.jmccpl.2023.100034. PubMed PMID: 37425219;
    2. Koppes EA, Johnson MA, Moresco JJ, Luppi P, Lewis DW, Stolz DB, Diedrich JK, Yates JR 3rd, Wek RC, Watkins SC, Gollin SM, Park HJ, Drain P, Nicholls RD. Insulin secretion deficits in a Prader-Willi syndrome β-cell model are associated with a concerted downregulation of multiple endoplasmic reticulum chaperones.. PLoS Genet. 2023 Apr;19(4):e1010710. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010710. PubMed PMID: 37068109;
    3. van der Geest R, Fan H, Peñaloza HF, Bain WG, Xiong Z, Kohli N, Larson E, Sullivan MLG, Franks JM, Stolz DB, Ito R, Chen K, Doi Y, Harriff MJ, Lee JS. Phagocytosis is a primary determinant of pulmonary clearance of clinical Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates.. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2023;13():1150658. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2023.1150658. PubMed PMID: 37056705;
    4. Hughes CB, Nigmet Y, Villanueva FS, Chen X, Demetris AJ, Stolz DB, Pacella JJ, Humar A. Ultrasound-Targeted Microbubble Cavitation During Machine Perfusion Reduces Microvascular Thrombi and Graft Injury in a Rat Liver Model of Donation After Circulatory Death.. Transplant Proc. 2023 Mar;55(2):485-495. doi: 10.1016/j.transproceed.2023.02.003. PubMed PMID: 36878745;
    5. Dave KM, Stolz DB, Venna VR, Quaicoe VA, Maniskas ME, Reynolds MJ, Babidhan R, Dobbins DX, Farinelli MN, Sullivan A, Bhatia TN, Yankello H, Reddy R, Bae Y, Leak RK, Shiva SS, McCullough LD, Manickam DS. Mitochondria-containing extracellular vesicles (EV) reduce mouse brain infarct sizes and EV/HSP27 protect ischemic brain endothelial cultures.. J Control Release. 2023 Feb;354():368-393. doi: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2023.01.025. PubMed PMID: 36642252;
    6. Klimas A, Gallagher BR, Wijesekara P, Fekir S, DiBernardo EF, Cheng Z, Stolz DB, Cambi F, Watkins SC, Brody SL, Horani A, Barth AL, Moore CI, Ren X, Zhao Y. Magnify is a universal molecular anchoring strategy for expansion microscopy.. Nat Biotechnol. 2023 Jun;41(6):858-869. doi: 10.1038/s41587-022-01546-1. PubMed PMID: 36593399;

     

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