hHv1 channels in neutrophils and the innate immune inflammatory response
Description: NARRATIVE (General Audience, public health relevance, 2-3 sentences) This research addresses a specific unmet medical need, the absence of an effective medical therapy for acute lung injury (ALI), a common disorder in patients with bacterial pneumonia or SARS-CoV-2 infec- tion and its severe form, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) that is fatal in 40% of patients. The work is broadly impactful because the white blood cells called neutrophils (Polymorphonuclear leuko- cytes, PMN) that damage the lungs in infectious ALI/ARDS also cause other acute and chronic inflam- matory diseases. In the last period, we showed that the human voltage-gated proton channel (hHv1) in PMN is essential to produce the inflammatory response, and we propose here to confront lung injury by a novel strategy: targeting hHv1 in PMN, both directly and by blocking a natural activator of hHv1, al- bumin (Alb), that we recently reported to be required for hHv1 operation, thereby offering two ways to confront the disease at the earliest stage before it becomes a more complex disorder.
Funding type: research
Funder scheme: R01
Start date: 2022-08-05
End date: 2027-06-30
Investigator: STEVE A N GOLDSTEIN
Institution: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE
Funded outputs count: 10
Funder award ID: R01HL159711
OpenAlex ID: G9000888317