The Tianjin Key Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Immunology was approved by the Tianjin Science and Technology Commission in 2006 and passed the acceptance in December 2007. It belongs to the field of life sciences and is mainly engaged in applied basic research. The laboratory has five technical research platforms: cell biology platform, molecular immunology platform, molecular biology platform, biochemical platform and mass spectrometry platform. The laboratory area is 4300m2, and the instrument and equipment value is more than 16 million.
Professor Jie Yang is the director of the laboratory. Professor Tao Cheng, director of the State Key Laboratory of Hematology, Union Medical University of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, is the chairman of the laboratory academic committee.The laboratory consists of a large group of outstanding professors and scholars, including Cheung Kong Scholars, 3 winners of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, 4 winners of the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars, talents funded by the New Century National Hundred, Thousand and Ten Thousand Talent Project, talents funded by National Ten-thousand Talents Program，young scientists with outstanding achievement funded by Ministry of Health, New Century Talents funded by Ministry of Education, talents funded by Tianjin Thousand Talents plan. The laboratory has undertaken 1 National Program on Key Basic Research Project of China (973 Program), National High-tech R&D Program of China (863 Program ), 3 Training Program of the Major Research Plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and more than 80 National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Main research directions
The research direction of the laboratory mainly covers oncology, pathology and pathophysiology, molecular biology research, and closely focuses on the molecular immunological mechanism of the immune microenvironment and disease, the regulation mechanism of immune cell signal transduction pathway and infectious diseases. Research group of Prof. Zhi Yao is mainly engaged in immune molecules and diseases and immune peptide drugs, focusing on the immune microenvironment and its related molecules and the pathogenesis of tumors.Research group of Prof. Jie Yang is mainly engaged in the cytokines and its signaling pathway regulation mechanism, focusing on the role of multifunctional SND1 protein in allergic diseases, tumor genesis, fat metabolism, cell stress, cell cycle and DNA damage and repair. Research group of Prof. Xi Yangis mainly engaged in molecular pathogenesis and drug resistance mechanism of pathogenic microorganisms.
Symbolicachievements
1. Research group ofProf.Zhi Yao is dedicated to the research of tumor microenvironment and innovative new drugs for tumors, and relationship between cytokines and diseases. To discover the immunological mechanism oftumorigenesis, the group has studied the relationship between cancer, prostate cancer and liver cancer and other tumors. The group has shown that USP52 isa deubiquitinating enzyme and it can regulate chromatin assembly by stabilizing ASF1A, which may be involved in the development of breast cancer. It is not only important for understanding the enzyme activity and function of USP52, but also helpful for understanding the epigenetic mechanism of breast cancer genomic instability. The research was publishedat Nature Communications in 2018. In addition, a new type of immune peptide supported by the National Science and Technology Major New Drug Creation Project is undergoing clinical trials, and it is expected to obtain a Class I anti-tumor drug certificate with independent intellectual property rights in China.
2. Research group of Prof. Jie Yang found that Tudor-SN protein interacts with TGFβ, andover-activation of TGFβ pathway leads to abnormally elevated Tudor-SN expression in breast cancer tissues. The TGFβ pathway induces an abnormal increase in Tudor-SN expression by the transcriptional activation of the Tudor-SN gene by its downstream transcription factor Smad3. The overexpressed Tudor-SN further induced the degradation of RhoA by increasing Smurf1 activity, resulting in disordered cytoskeleton arrangement of tumor cells and increased invasion and migration ability. The research was published in Cancer Research.
3. Research group ofProf. Zhe Liu found that Aiolos was expressed in a variety of solid tumor cells. The high expression of Aiolos indicates a short survival period of tumor patients; Aiolos can down-regulate the expression of a series of cell adhesion-related proteins and destroy intercellular junctions between tumor cellsand adhesion between tumor cells and extracellular matrix andpromote the release of tumor cells from the epidermal cell sheet structure, which ultimately promotes the distant metastasis of tumor cells. It is proposed that solid tumor cells can acquire certain characteristics of lymphocytes (such as anoikis resistance) through the co-opt lymphocyte transcriptional regulation pathway, and realize a new perspective of distant proliferation. This finding is expected to be a clinical diagnosis and treatment of solid tumors. The research was published in the cancer field authoritative journal Cancer Cell.
4.Research group ofProf. Rongxin Zhang found that the lack of miR-223 can significantly improve central nervous system inflammation, demyelination and clinical symptoms of Experimental Allergic Encephalomyelitis (EAE), and increase the autophagy level of resting microglia and microglia in the brain. miR-223 is a new important autophagy regulator and ATG16L1 is a target gene of miR-223. These results contribute to the understanding of the neuroinflammatory process of EAE. The research was published in Autophagy.
