Mineralocorticoid receptor activation pathways in macrophages ; new mechanisms of heart failure

Summary The mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) is best known for regulating sodium, potassium, fluid balance and blood pressure control via actions in the kidney. Our work has shown that the MR also has important functional roles in other tissues and cell types including cardiac myocytes, vascular smooth muscle cells and inflammatory cells such as macrophages. In these cells, the actions of the MR play a central role cardiac inflammation and fibrosis, which, are hall marks of heart disease.

Project Details

The goal of these studies is to identify novel MR regulated pathways using proteomic and genomic screening technologies and to define and characterise these pathways using human and mouse cell lines, preclinical and transgenic models, and clinical samples where possible.
In this way, we hope to identify novel mechanisms of heart disease, determine the optimal way to treat patients and avoid the serious side effects of current treatments.
Techniques involved: tissue culture, molecular cloning techniques, cytokine assays, RTPCR, western blot, FACS, immunocytochemistry, bioinformatics, database analyses.